


tonight, i'll send the glow of a firefly

by heartofashes



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: And then they were roommates, Fluff, M/M, Model Kim Mingyu, Mutual Pining, Tired Academic Jeon Wonwoo, extremely self-indulgent pls bear with me, features: cats; food as love language; platonic bedsharing; boys being oblivious idiots, lots of domesticity and acts of service
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29407026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofashes/pseuds/heartofashes
Summary: Eight months, just eight months of living with Mingyu, and Wonwoo feels like a fishing hook has been embedded into his heart of which only Mingyu wields the hilt - reeling him in, in, in, until Wonwoo feels terrifyingly compromised.All Mingyu has to do is to lay his cards blatantly on the table, and Wonwoo relinquishes all his defenses, loses every hint of reason. All Mingyu has to do is gently push past the ramparts of Wonwoo’s soul, to say,hey, I’m here; hey, I think about you even when I’m away for the weekend, and Wonwoo is nothing but a throbbing, obliterated mess.
Relationships: Jeon Wonwoo/Kim Mingyu, side jeongcheol and side boohao
Comments: 26
Kudos: 188





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (i have nobody to blame for this apart from myself, cee and pb)
> 
> title from iu's 'through the night', which is coincidentally also wonwoo's favourite song :)
> 
> [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1UTJKi3yn6yUeHSEwW4g2K?si=H4ZrhYbHSMeBNRGkiiOgjA) is the official playlist for this fic !! and [here](https://twitter.com/briochestitch/status/1360746663854268416?s=20) is a v badly drawn sketch of wonwoo and mingyu's apartment to serve as visual cue!!!!

_Tonight, I'll send the glow of a firefly_

_to somewhere_

_Near your window_

_I hope it's a good dream._

_**-IU, Through The Night** _

There a few things Jeon Wonwoo holds sacred:

_Late afternoon naps on Sundays. His first cup of morning tea, complete with liberal squeezes of lemon and honey._

_Utter and complete silence, when working on the latest chapter of his dissertation._

But with Kim Mingyu stumbling around his ( _their,_ Wonwoo has to remind himself, _it's_ _theirs now_ ) humble two-bedroom apartment, silence has become pretty much nonexistent, a luxury Wonwoo has long since given up on.

Wonwoo can barely remember the last time the apartment _wasn't_ constantly echoing with the steady thump of large, uncoordinated footsteps, with lisp-ridden humming from the shower, with lightning-fast chatter that Wonwoo can barely follow, but Mingyu keeps up anyway. Perhaps Wonwoo had lived alone for so long, the presence of another human - especially a loud, overeager, golden retriever of a human - in his personal space seems mind-boggling, like the very centre of his gravity being shaken out of balance. Or perhaps, it’s just Mingyu. 

Mingyu, and that ever-radiant grin lighting up his entire being, his crooked left canine always peeking out ( _adorable,_ Wonwoo admits to himself, but only grudgingly). Mingyu, who flushes beet-red at the tiniest of compliments, his soft wheeze always getting a little high-pitched in the aftermath of it. Mingyu, who is easily enchanted by the most innocuous of things - a bird singing on their windowsill, a book left half-read on Wonwoo's bedside table, a camellia blossom he found strewn on the sidewalk and brought home gently cradled in his palms. 

Even now, Wonwoo is hunched over the kitchen table wrestling with a particularly tricky dissertation paragraph on the merits of comparative linguistics, and the apartment is awash with Mingyu’s influence - with his distinct floral scent, with his large, uncoordinated footsteps. Far from silent.

There is that lisp-ridden humming too, perhaps too close, too potent, for one am on a Monday night. Soon enough, the chair next to Wonwoo is pulled, and a bubbling pot of incredibly delicious-smelling jajangmyeon hits the table with a careful thud.

"Okay, eat up now," Mingyu says, settling into the aforementioned chair next to Wonwoo. Once again occupying Wonwoo's personal space, once again disturbing perhaps the most sacred _Wonwoo ritual_ of them all. "You've gone without actual, human food for, what? forty-eight hours now? You need your proteins, hyung!"

"Mingyu," Wonwoo whines, but his stomach grumbles traitorously at the exact same moment, giving himself away in the worst possible manner. He doesn't blame it - after all, the jajangmyeon is fresh off the stove, steam still rising from its tantalising depths, and Mingyu is right. 

Wonwoo really _hasn’t_ eaten anything in the past forty eight hours that can even remotely qualify as anything a functional adult would consume. He hopes Mingyu hasn’t noticed the empty instant ramen packets and beer cans he’s tossed in the trash - though, judging from the determined set to Mingyu’s jaw, the insistent way in which keeps nudging the pot of jajangmyeon towards Wonwoo, Wonwoo hasn’t been so lucky.

Mingyu is, well, _persuasive._ But he only gets _this_ persuasive (and that too at one am on a Monday night) when he suspects that Wonwoo is back to neglecting himself, back to living like an ancient elusive cryptid who survives on nothing but mere scraps.

"I have to email this chapter to my PhD supervisor like, tonight.” Wonwoo whines again, a weak attempt at deflection. “And I'm already an hour past deadline, Mingyu-yah."

"I know, I know," but Mingyu shows no sign of backing away, crossing his arms around his chest and letting out a tiny huff that Wonwoo will never confess even at gunpoint that he finds cute. "But hyung! How will you get the inspiration to write your dissertation if you don’t get your daily nutrition and sustenance!!!"

Wonwoo opens his mouth to protest, but it's like Mingyu has immediately read his mind, like Mingyu knows exactly what Wonwoo will say next.

"-And _no,_ instant ramen and cheap beer _don't_ count as nutrition and sustenance."

And that’s it, the final nail in the coffin. The last of Wonwoo’s resistance crumbling to pieces, the last of his already-dented willpower seeping out of his bones.

Wonwoo sighs, his shoulders slouching in resignation. After all, there never _is_ any winning against Mingyu. There never _is_ any pretence to keep sticking to his sacred rituals now that Mingyu has tilted his entire universe upside down, has plunged everything into complete and utter disarray.

Wonwoo’s stomach grumbles again, this time louder, as if it’s celebrating Wonwoo’s inevitable surrender to Mingyu’s designs, and Wonwoo would curse, he really _would,_ but Mingyu’s crooked-canined smile is dazzling under the burnished amber glow of the kitchen lights, is full of an earnestness that is making Wonwoo _unravel,_ and-

Wonwoo is only human.

He shuts the lid of his laptop with another dramatic, drawn-out sigh, and pushes it aside in favour of finally grabbing the bowl and chopsticks Mingyu has deftly laid out for him, ladling the noodles and meat onto it. Mingyu’s hands are now no longer crossed around his chest, instead his elbows are splayed against the dark mahogany of the kitchen table, his chin resting on the breadth of his palms, his chestnut-brown eyes flush with a mingled sense of triumph and unmistakable gentleness.

The jajangmyeon tastes as heavenly as it smells, and as soon as a chopstickful of the black bean sauce hits Wonwoo’s tongue, the moan of pleasure he lets out is as involuntary as it is embarrassing. His traitorous little stomach seems to be dictating every single one of his impulses, because Wonwoo simply _cannot_ stop shovelling more and more bites into his mouth, can’t stop responding to Mingyu’s (ridiculously delicious) cooking like he just found an oasis in the middle of the most barren, most desolate desert.

But Mingyu, for his part, only grins his crooked-canined, crinkly-eyed, ever-radiant, quintessentially _Mingyu_ grin - fondness painted on every curve and flourish of it.

"I go away for two days, just _two days_ , and here you are, hyung! Starving and overworking yourself nearly to death," Mingyu is clicking his tongue, but it's a gesture full of too much _care,_ too much indulgence. The reprimand completely lacks heat, and the effect is ruined even further when Mingyu reaches up to wipe a stray droplet of sauce from the corner of Wonwoo’s mouth. 

Wonwoo tries not to physically shiver at the touch.

"Honestly, hyung,” The lisp in Mingyu's voice is more prominent than ever, especially now that he has somehow scooted even closer to Wonwoo, his grin even more dazzling, effervescent. “How did you ever survive before me?"

 _I don't know either,_ Wonwoo’s (equally traitorous) mind supplies immediately.

An unceremonious swarm of butterflies suddenly attack his stomach, reminding him once again of just how many sacred rituals Mingyu has upended, just how much havoc Mingyu has wreaked in only eight months of being his roommate. Just how much violence Mingyu is capable of, simply by smoothening the pad of his thumb against the curve of Wonwoo’s bottom lip, simply by the astonished little giggle he lets out when Wonwoo devours an entire string of noodles in a single gulp.

But as with every other minor and not-so-minor inconvenience that Kim Mingyu has invited into his life, Wonwoo simply swallows hard and waits for the swarming of butterflies in his stomach to go away. He doesn't say anything, only turns his eyes downward and cuts into the softboiled egg in the middle of his bowl, watching the vivid-orange yolk swirl into the black bean sauce.

“Seriously, hyung,” Mingyu continues in the absence of Wonwoo’s reply, as if completely oblivious to the turmoil currently plaguing Wonwoo. “All throughout this weekend I was constantly thinking, _is Wonwoo hyung eating well?_ _Does he remember the kimchi jjigae recipe I taught him? Is he once again shutting himself indoors and shunning all human interaction and agonising over his dissertation day and night?_ Do you know how many times the photoshoot director was like,"Mingyu! you need to look cool and mysterious for the camera! Right now you just look like someone ran over your dog!!”

Wow, now Wonwoo feels _terrible._

Mingyu wasn't only away for the weekend, he was away for _work_ \- headlining a _Vogue Korea_ cover shoot, possibly the biggest, most important modeling gig he’s booked so far. This is the kind of opportunity Mingyu has been striving and toiling for as long as Wonwoo has known him (which, admittedly, has merely been eight months - and yet, judging from how a constant running theme in all of Mingyu's excitable chattering from _day one_ has been Vogue magazine, Wonwoo can sense how much this means to him.) 

And all Wonwoo has done this entire weekend is not only worry and distract Mingyu when he was on set, but also circle back to the very same habit that has been the very subject of all of Mingyu's worries: _neglecting himself._

Wonwoo visibly deflates, his shoulders now sinking against the back of his wooden chair, another sigh escaping his sauce-coated lips, but this one far more morose, thick with regret.

"I'm sorry," Wonwoo whimpers pathetically, "I- I should have…”

_I should have called to wish you luck for the shoot. I should have asked you if Jeju was treating you well, whether everyone on set was taking care of you as much you take care of others. I should have been less of an idiotic loner who forgets about the outside world when he’s in the middle of academic writing. I should have-_

But instead, he says:

“I should have made the kimchi jjigae at least."

Eight months, just eight months of living with Mingyu, and Wonwoo feels like a fishing hook has been embedded into his heart of which only Mingyu wields the hilt - reeling him in, in, in, until Wonwoo feels terrifyingly compromised. All Mingyu has to do is to lay his cards blatantly on the table, and Wonwoo relinquishes all his defenses, loses every hint of reason. All Mingyu has to do is gently push past the ramparts of Wonwoo’s soul, to say, _hey, I’m here; hey, I think about you even when I’m away for the weekend,_ and Wonwoo is nothing but a throbbing, obliterated mess.

And Mingyu, once more - just like always - is completely oblivious to the effect he has on Wonwoo. Completely oblivious of how much he has altered the very paradigms of everything Wonwoo holds sacred. Mingyu simply giggles again, as loud and staccato and beautiful as he did the day he brought home the camellia blossom gently cradled in his palm.

"Oh, it’s okay hyung! Don’t apologise!” The words barrel out of him in a rush, as they often do whenever Mingyu’s boundless, untarnished energy is _too much_ to be contained even within his six foot two inch tall body, “I'll admit I shuddered when I saw the empty ramen packets in the trash, but I'm back now, aren't I? I’m back to make sure you don’t starve and overwork yourself to death again! I'm back to take care of you!"

And.

What is Wonwoo to ever say to _that?_ How is Wonwoo to ever cope?

There it is again. The swarm of butterflies attacking Wonwoo’s stomach, dousing him in a warmth he doesn’t know what to do with, turning his ears into a bright, inescapable red. 

But this time, Wonwoo chooses to let the butterflies stay for a little longer. This time, he doesn’t fight the smile that blooms on the corner of his lips, barely a match for Mingyu’s ever-radiant grin, but no less earnest. No less fond, despite himself.

He has already surrendered to Mingyu’s designs, might as well go the distance.

"So,” Wonwoo decides to change the subject (but perhaps, not really), shoveling another chopstickful of jajangmyeon into his mouth, “You're not going to tell me about how it was like to star in a Vogue photoshoot?"

Another breathtaking giggle, another flash of crooked canines. Chestnut-brown eyes, alight with carefree mirth. 

"I thought you'd never ask," Mingyu replies, using this as an eager segue into the inevitable rambling about every single detail of his weekend that he’s been _itching_ to launch into from the minute he got back from Jeju. 

As he pushes his now-emptied bowl aside to lean forward, his entire body tilted towards Mingyu, Wonwoo can't help but be a little bit enchanted, can't help but be _more than willing_ to be subjected to the entire spectrum of Mingyu’s lisp-ridden, lightning-fast chattering. 

And Mingyu does exactly that - he _rambles._ He rambles until the clock hits two am, rambles until he gets increasingly animated, gesturing wildly with his small, callused hands while narrating how the Vogue editors had complimented his expressions and how flustered and pleased it had made him. 

And Wonwoo thinks (the half-written chapter of his dissertation momentarily forgotten):

_Perhaps silence is overrated._

\---

**_Eight Months Ago_ **

It begins, like a lot of things in Wonwoo's life do, with an empty refrigerator.

Kim Mingyu moves in on a particularly dreary April evening, late-spring rain angrily pattering against his windows, shrouding the cherry blossom trees outside in windswept gloom. 

Mingyu nearly trips and falls on the doorstep, his neatly packed boxes toppling over in the process, but erects himself just in time, one arm holding onto the door frame for purchase. His fashionable long trenchcoat is entirely drenched, so are his mud-caked boots, so is his artfully mussed hair (though Wonwoo guesses the mussing is less artful and more a product of the weather outside). 

But despite it all - despite his lack of balance, despite his generally disheveled state - Mingyu's grin is as dazzling as ever.

"Hi hyung!" He exclaims, the lisp slipping out like sustained poetry, "Wait, I can call you hyung, right? Minghao mentioned you're a year older than us and I didn't really want to start off being _too_ formal since we're gonna be living together and I was hoping that we could be friends! But of course, if you don’t like it I won’t-"

"It's okay, y-you can call me hyung." Wonwoo interjects, disoriented from the combined effect of tall, clumsy, _absurdly_ handsome Mingyu (even when drenched from head to toe), his neatly packed boxes that are now strewn everywhere on the living room floor, and a steady stream of lightning-fast half-slurred-together rambling that makes Wonwoo's head spin a little. 

In just the span of ten excruciatingly long minutes, Wonwoo's humble two-bedroom apartment is flooded with more activity than it has seen for the four whole years since Wonwoo has occupied it - its chipped cement walls now echoing with Mingyu's abundant, unrestrained enthusiasm. Wonwoo can barely process it all, can barely stop to register even a single aspect of his new roommate without being blindsided by the next.

But then, Mingyu's grin widens, offering Wonwoo his first mesmerising glimpse into those infamously crooked canines.

"Thank you, hyung!" Mingyu squeals in delight, all but bouncing on the balls of his feet, as if just this simple license to drop formal honorifics is tantamount to a priceless reward, "Ah, sorry for dripping rainwater all over the carpet, I'll get changed and clean it up immediately! I got so horribly wet today, hyung, it was the worst! My umbrella was stashed somewhere inside those boxes and by the time it started raining it was too late to fish it out-"

"Th-that's okay too," Wonwoo interrupts again, struggling once more to comprehend how a single person can say _so many words_ all at once. Wonwoo, who only talks when directly spoken to, who hardly knows _what_ to say more often than not, has never encountered someone like Kim Mingyu before. "You don't have to clean it up, it's okay-"

But it's like Mingyu moves a mile a minute, a lightyear in a millisecond. He's already shrugging off his coat, is carefully discarding his mud-caked boots and padding over to the kitchen in his strawberry-patterned socks (Wonwoo doesn't want to find them endearing. _He doesn't._ )

Before Wonwoo can even get up from the kitchen table - where he has been consumed with dissertation research all evening - Mingyu is beside him in a flash, eyelashes fluttering, soggy hair falling over his forehead. 

"Ah but hyung, I'm so hungry!" He whines "I could _kill_ for some bulgogi right now! Do you mind if I raid your fridge?"

Wonwoo opens his mouth to give his assent, or to possibly offer to order them takeout, but Mingyu, ever the elusive, lightning-fast supernova of a boy, beats him to the punch. He has already trudged over to the fridge, assent or no assent, opening it as abruptly and gracelessly as he had stumbled into the apartment. 

Wonwoo is torn half between gaping at his new roommate in awe, desperately attempting to parse out what makes him tick, and simply leaving Mingyu to his own devices to go back to the thick volumes of sociolinguistics textbooks in front of him.

When Wonwoo had grudgingly agreed to sublet the spare room in his apartment, the last thing he had expected was for Xu Minghao from the Art History department to walk over to him during one of his lunch breaks and say, "Hey, I just saw the flyer you put up in the teacher's lounge. I have a friend who might be interested in being your roommate."

But Wonwoo had had little reason to refuse. This was his final year as a PhD scholar and funding was running thin - teaching an undergraduate Linguistics module barely helped him scrape through, and he was _desperate_ to cut costs, even if that meant sharing his private space with a complete stranger. The last time Wonwoo had lived with roommates was back when he was still a fresh-faced first-year student with big dreams and zero notion of the blatant lack of respect university kids had for boundaries. All it had given him was a string of anxiety attacks, and Wonwoo got out of there as soon as he could pay for his own place, even if said place currently chewed up a significant amount of his PhD scholar stipend.

But, after four blissful years of living alone, he now needed a backup plan. He _needed_ a roommate, and he needed one desperately.

"I vouch for him," Minghao had added, "My boyfriend runs the modeling agency he’s signed under. He's good, I promise."

 _A model,_ Wonwoo had thought. _A model?_

The very prospect of it had sounded utterly surreal. Why would someone signed under a _modeling agency_ want to live with tired, barely functional, sleep-deprived, severely underpaid academic Jeon Wonwoo? 

_Jeon Wonwoo,_ of all people.

But Minghao, despite his enigmatic ways, had looked unfailingly sincere while arguing his friend's case, putting every bit of emphasis on the word _good,_ on the _I vouch for him._ And Wonwoo, despite his worst inhibitions, had decided to take Minghao’s word for it, entirely unaware of what he was signing up for, entirely unaware that it would lead to:

A drenched-from-head-to-toe, six feet two inch tall, strawberry-socked, mussy-haired Kim Mingyu, gawking at the contents of Wonwoo's slightly worse for wear refrigerator with his jaw hanging open.

 _"Oh my god,"_ Mingyu breathes out, the mingled disbelief and horror in his voice palpable, his chest rising and falling frantically, "All you have in here is… milk. That’s it! _That's it?"_

Wonwoo looks up from his books again, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. "Um, yeah? Th-the milk is for the tea I drink every morning?"

"And _that's it?"_ Mingyu sounds strangled now, voice high-pitched like he’s going through the seven stages of grief, "Not even eggs? Not even kimchi? Do you- Hyung, what do you eat in a day?"

"I-" Wonwoo’s ears are bright crimson, a self-consciousness he has never felt before crawling into his chest. He fidgets with the peeling skin of his right thumb, struggling to come up with a defence, but everything pales in comparison to the genuine alarm that Mingyu’s wide, stricken eyes convey. As if Wonwoo has committed a cardinal sin.

"I...usually order takeout?” Wonwoo attempts regardless, “Or I eat at the university cafeteria?”

"Oh my god," Another strangled gasp of pure horror, and Mingyu shuts the refrigerator door with a scandalised thwack. He slowly, dramatically, turns to face Wonwoo - his eyes now as round as saucers, his mussed hair still dripping water onto the now-soggy carpet. "How're you....How's this..."

Mingyu trails off before he can finish his own sentence, as if the sheer incredulity of something as elementary as an empty refrigerator has baffled him _so much_ he has no clue what to do about it. It is single-handedly the strangest thing Wonwoo has ever witnessed, and for a second, all he _too_ can do is stare back at Mingyu with as much incredulity as Mingyu levels at him.

"Uh, sorry?" Is all Wonwoo offers in a weak effort to fill the awkward silence when Mingyu has spent at least more than a minute staring at Wonwoo like he’s sprouted horns, or wings, or both. 

"I don't...I'm not much of a cook really."

"Oh my _god,"_ Mingyu gasps again, this time perhaps even more hysterically (if that was even possible), and Wonwoo thinks that maybe this is it, he has broken his new roommate for good before they've even had the chance to spend more than ten minutes together. And he's still not entirely sure what he's done to even _warrant_ such a…passionate response. 

Yes, Wonwoo's eating habits are erratic, but his workload is the size of Mount Everest, with a fast approaching dissertation submission deadline and a thankless part-time teaching job that only swallows up more of his personal time. Even if he knew _how_ to cook, it’s not like he has the luxury of making three course meals every single day.

Another second passes, and then something in Mingyu's expression changes, suddenly mellowing, sandpapering over all its earlier incredulity. The set of his jaw unclasps, but at the same time, his chestnut-brown eyes take on a quieter hue of determination - something far softer, that Wonwoo doesn't really know how to interpret.

"Okay, change of plans." Mingyu says, crossing his arms around his shoulders, "Grab your coat, hyung. We're going out."

"Wh-what?" The words come out more disjointed than Wonwoo thinks them, his brain once again blindsided by the constant rollercoaster that is his new roommate, never leaving a single moment dull or predictable.

It’s Wonwoo’s turn to go all round-eyed now, his glasses slipping down his nose in the wake of it. "But it's still raining outside..."

It’s another paltry excuse, and Wonwoo knows it, his ears once again reddening from the inexplicable self-consciousness he feels under Mingyu’s steadfast gaze. 

But perhaps Mingyu knows it too, because in the very next second, Mingyu is flashing him that same dazzling grin which nearly made Wonwoo’s head spin earlier, is embodying that same lightning-fast supernova intensity he did when he first walked into Wonwoo's apartment. That mix of mellowness and determination still pervades every inch of Mingyu, but perhaps: it is now more mellowness than determination.

"It's a good thing I'm already drenched then, isn't it?" Mingyu’s canines are crooked, his hair is mussed and dripping, his pink socks are dotted with bright-maroon strawberries, and Wonwoo-

_Well._

And that's how Wonwoo finds himself here: in the middle of a convenience store two streets away, drying the wet denim of his trousers under the orange-glow of the electric heater at one end of the store. Mingyu prances around the length of the various aisles, eagerly piling an assortment of meats, spices and vegetables onto his shopping cart.

Now that Mingyu’s entire unhindered attention isn’t focused on just Wonwoo, Wonwoo can actually _look_ at him, can notice the details that escaped Wonwoo earlier - can notice the tiny smattering of moles on the slant of Mingyu’s nose, can notice that Mingyu subconsciously hums under his breath when he’s concentrating very hard on something, can notice that despite being so tall and broad, Mingyu’s hands are incredibly small, incredibly nimble.

Wonwoo only gapes in awe - which is perhaps already becoming a recurring theme in their burgeoning roommate relationship.

"Don't you worry, hyung," Mingyu is blabbering away, as he has from the minute Wonwoo _did_ put on his coat (and grabbed an umbrella) and stepped out the door with him, "By the end of today not only will you have a well stocked fridge and pantry, you'll see how magical it can be to whip up quick and easy meals with simple convenience store ingredients! I'm telling you, hyung, relying on takeout all the time isn't good for your health, okay? Studies say that your chances of contracting premature heart disease increases if you eat things with too much oil and fat in it, and that stuff messes with your blood sugar too! And do you know what Seungkwannie - who is also my agent by the way - says? He says that having the right diet is the key to living a long and stress-free life! Do you know, Seungkwannie also taught me this special squatting exercise that's great for core strength and also blood circulation-"

And there it is: Kim Mingyu, in his pure, untarnished glory. Kim Mingyu, in all his _loudness_ and _life,_ completely and utterly disrupting _every_ kind of silence that has always shadowed Wonwoo’s heart and soul. 

Mingyu talks and talks and talks some more, pausing only to look over at Wonwoo from across the aisle, that dazzling, crooked-canined grin unwavering, _ardent._

Mingyu's gaze pins Wonwoo to the spot, like two magnets stuck to each other - their magnetic fields diametrically opposed, yet fusing together in this fragile moment. Two halves of a whole.

Mingyu' gaze pins Wonwoo to the spot, like Wonwoo somehow hung the moon and stars, like Wonwoo is the only other human being to exist in the entire galaxy.

And _well._

Maybe Wonwoo _is_ the only other human being at this convenience store (apart from the cashier currently dozing off behind the register), but when Mingyu babbles on and on, when Mingyu looks at Wonwoo _like that,_ when Mingyu _grins_ at Wonwoo like that _,_ even if they've only known each other for barely a day, for less than an hour:

Something fundamentally shifts.

Wonwoo can't really pinpoint _what,_ not yet. But he gets the distinct feeling that he's about to find out.

\---

"I'm home!" Wonwoo declares as soon as he steps inside their apartment, in the midst of undoing his boots and shrugging off his slightly frayed woolen jacket. 

This too is a ritual that is only eights-months-old: the _hey, i'm home,_ the gently letting the person he's sharing his space with know that _he's here, he's present -_ the _having_ another person to declare his presence to in the first place. It boggles Wonwoo's mind how quickly he’s adapted to it, like it _isn’t_ a vast tectonic shift from how things used to be, like returning from an exhausting day of seminars and lectures to the sight of an eager, beaming Mingyu puttering about in the kitchen, rifling through a magazine on the living room couch, or humming under his breath as he waters the string of bougainvilleas on their windowsill, is something that’s always been an essential part of his life. An essential melody in the operatic overture of his existence. 

And Mingyu? Mingyu always, unfailingly _,_ responds in kind. He drops whatever he’s doing to bound over to Wonwoo before the final syllable of the _I’m Home_ is even uttered out loud, fussing and hovering around Wonwoo as he blabbers little anecdotes about his day or asks about _Wonwoo’s,_ never abandoning his eager, crooked-canined grin for a single second. 

Wonwoo would never admit it even at gunpoint, but he doesn’t quite mind this particular ritual, no matter how much he likes to pretend otherwise.

But today, something’s different. There is a surprising lack of a response to the _I’m Home,_ a surprising lack of activity, a surprising lack of bustling in the kitchen or a six foot two inch tall form curled up on the sofa, watching a sappy romantic drama. Wonwoo frowns to himself - judging from the fact that Mingyu’s shoes are still very much on the shoe rack and the sight of Mingyu’s wallet lying on the kitchen table, Mingyu is clearly in the apartment. From underneath the shut door to Mingyu's room, beams of yellow light spill out, a flash of scuffling feet walk past - further signs that Mingyu is very much behind that door, very much _here,_ possibly pacing back and forth _._ Yet, nearly ten minutes tick past as Wonwoo stands gaping at that very same shut door, and no reply is forthcoming from the other end, no acknowledgement that Wonwoo is home, that Wonwoo is once again offering himself up to being subjected to Mingyu’s excitable babbling with genuine willingness. 

The clock on the mantle reads 8:00 pm and the apartment is doused in an uncomfortable sort of lull, an _incompleteness_ Wonwoo cannot put a name to. Until - 

Until Wonwoo finally lets his shoulders slump, losing an internal battle with the worst of his impulses. _What the hell am I doing,_ he thinks, but steps forward anyway:

With a carefully sucked in breath, he raps on the chipped wood of Mingyu’s door with the back of knuckles, trying not to come across as deeply concerned as he actually feels, “Hey, Mingyu-yah. You okay in there?”

The only thing he’s greeted with in return is a resounding groan, which in itself is highly irregular. In all the months that Wonwoo has known Mingyu, he has hardly ever seen him _actively_ frustrated - dismayed, sure; whiny, sure; but never genuinely frustrated to the extent that he would groan _like that._ Mingyu is usually so patient, so accommodating, he's rarely anything but ridiculously chipper, forever armed with a sunny, crooked-canined smile or act of unbidden generosity. 

But this - this is so wholly uncharacteristic that Wonwoo can’t help the beginnings of panic that unspools in the pit of his stomach, can’t help but wonder if something legitimately serious has happened, if Mingyu is unwell, or worse, _upset_ about something-

But before Wonwoo’s mind can conjure up any other worst case scenarios, the door swings open, laying all of his fears to rest.

(Or perhaps, instilling an entirely new set of fears altogether.)

Wonwoo’s heart nearly somersaults in his chest at the sight before him, the tops of his ears suddenly feeling unseasonably warm, like they will spontaneously combust any second even if it's the tail-end of November. He has to clench his socked toes to keep from losing his balance and tumbling to the floor in a mess of limbs - just like Mingyu himself had done the first time they met.

And here is that same Kim Mingyu now, standing before him in ethereal maroon silk shirt, the top four buttons carelessly unbuttoned, bronze planes of muscular chest blatantly on display, glistening under the pale yellow lighting of Mingyu's room. His taut, shiny leather trousers hug every curve and circumference of his limbs, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination, tapering from the sweeping bulge of Mingyu's thighs towards the far more dainty contours of his bare feet. Deft eyeliner accentuates his chestnut-brown eyes, nestled beneath purple, smoky eyeshadow. The hint of gloss on his lips is blatantly, perhaps making them look even more puckered than usual, even more titillating than usual.

 _Sinful_ . Mingyu looks _sinful,_ like the culmination of every forbidden fantasy Wonwoo has desperately kept himself from entertaining, like a punch to the solar plexus, rendering gravity obsolete. 

Objectively (or perhaps, not so objectively), Wonwoo has always been aware that Mingyu is a very attractive man, with his muscular legs and adonis-like shoulders and inordinately long lashes framing a set of eyes that the classical poets would write elegies about. But so far, Wonwoo has meticulously kept such revelations at arm’s length, has carefully conditioned himself to _not_ notice, to _not_ register.

He has avoided lingering on the various photoshoots, magazine editorials and ad campaigns that Mingyu excitedly shows him every time they’re published anywhere, has avoided staring too long at the plunging necklines of Mingyu’s outfits in those photos, at that one Calvin Klein spread where Mingyu’s wearing nothing but a flimsy pair of boxers, at footage of the time Mingyu had walked the ramp at Seoul Fashion Week in a pleated skirt and stilettos, lips painted bright red. But this? This is a collapsing of worlds Wonwoo is wholly unprepared for. The Mingyu before him is no longer the Mingyu who is his clumsy, endlessly talkative roommate, who patiently teaches Wonwoo how to make kimchi jjigae no matter how terrible Wonwoo is at grasping even the basics of cooking, who sings to the succulents on their balcony and the bougainvilleas on their windowsill and brings home camelia blossoms cradled in his palms purely because: “ _they’re pretty, hyung!”_

The Mingyu before him now is the Mingyu of suave photoshoots and underwear modeling campaigns, sultry and seductive and untouchable, no longer something Wonwoo can keep at arm's length. 

And yet.

 _"_ Hyung," Mingyu lets out another groan, his shoulders hunched, his bottom lip jutting out in the beginnings of a pout, his voice as lisp-ridden as ever, " _Hyuuung,_ this is a nightmare!! Tonight's the Vogue cover launch party - yes the same cover photoshoot I went to Jeju Island for - oh my god hyung can you imagine I'll finally see myself on the cover of Vogue?? It's finally happening???? But _wait,_ that's not important right now!! Right now I have to get ready for a party that every other big name in the fashion industry's gonna be at and I'm a disaster, hyung! I've been trying on everything in my closet for the past two hours and nothing seems right! I've redone my makeup at least five times and I still- _Oh my god_ hyung I look like a fool and I'm gonna _make_ a total fool of myself in front of the editor-in-chief of _Vogue Fucking Korea_ and everybody at that party will realise that I actually don't deserve to be there and they'll never hire me again and-"

"Hey." Wonwoo can't help it, he can't. It's like an automated sensory response, like an ingrained reflex - his hand finding its way to Mingyu's bicep, squeezing it in firm reassurance, drowning out his own personal Mingyu-related revelations to focus on calming Mingyu’s nerves instead.

Perhaps, this version of Mingyu - sultry, seductive, _untouchable_ \- is not quite as untouchable as Wonwoo had initially apprehended. Perhaps, this Mingyu is also _his_ Mingyu, his clumsy, talkative, relentlessly loud golden retriever of a roommate, who is currently staring up at Wonwoo with those familiar chestnut-brown eyes, his bottom lip caught between his teeth, smudging away it's gloss just the slightest bit.

Wonwoo takes it all in: the rapidfire rambling, the furrows between Mingyu's brows that he's just now noticing, the way the nail paint on Mingyu's left thumb is chipping at the corners because Mingyu keeps anxiously fidgeting with it. And suddenly, Wonwoo knows exactly what to do.

"Hey. Breathe, okay?" He tightens his grasp on Mingyu's bicep, his other hand travelling to the base of Mingyu's chin, holding it up gently so their faces are level with each other’s, the flutter of Mingyu’s mascaraed eyelashes betraying his surprise at the sudden point of contact. But Mingyu leans into the touch anyway, melting in the wake of Wonwoo’s fingers.

“You're not gonna make a fool of yourself, I promise.” Wonwoo declares with every ounce of conviction he can muster.

“How can you say that with so much confidence!! What if I _do!!!_ ” Mingyu’s pout intensifies, and his earlier groan of frustration is replaced by one of his trademark whines, more petulant now than actively nervous. Wonwoo can't help but smile a little, choosing to consider this a victory, albeit a relatively small one.

"You won’t.” The more he says it, the more Wonwoo’s conviction heightens. Nobody understands impostor syndrome better than Wonwoo - the constant loop of worst case scenarios repeating in your mind, the backing yourself into a corner because you’re too worried about whether or not you’re good enough - but he also understands _Mingyu._ Even if it’s just been eight months, he _knows_ Mingyu, he _understands_ Mingyu, he knows that Mingyu’s fears are entirely unfounded.

“You deserve this, Mingyu-yah. You deserve this because you’ve worked hard for it, day in and day out.” He pauses only to stare into Mingyu’s chestnut-brown eyes again, to revel in the warmth of Mingyu’s chin against his forefinger, to take in the mesmerising angles of Mingyu’s face (and perhaps, also to bemoan the fact that Mingyu’s foundation has covered up his nose moles, which is a sad circumstance indeed) - and lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding in. “Tonight is about your success, about celebrating your very first Vogue cover, _your dream._ So go out there and just be yourself, yeah? Everyone will love you."

For a long, suspended moment, there is infinite silence. Mingyu’s lips are slightly parted (the gloss still smudged), and his chest rises and falls, like his lungs are too eager to expel the air inside them. The large wooden clock on the living room mantel ticks loudly, and splotches of pink appear on the tops of Mingyu’s cheeks - Wonwoo isn’t sure if that’s merely a trick of makeup or an actual, full-bodied blush.

"Y-you really think so?" Mingyu lisps out after another minute of being suspended in time and space like that, something unbearably fragile and precarious about the tone of his voice. 

It’s as if Wonwoo’s answer could make or break him, and Wonwoo’s pulse thunders under the weight of that realisation, the butterflies in his stomach multiplying in number, barraging into every available direction.

"Yeah. I really really think so," Wonwoo’s voice is subdued, but his conviction is utterly untarnished. He means what he says, unequivocally, unchangingly. " And-”

"And?" Mingyu leans forward ever-so-softly, hanging on to Wonwoo’s every single word, every single syllable.

Wonwoo gulps, not entirely sure how to proceed with what he wants to say next. But _fuck,_ he’s already said out loud too many of the sentiments that usually die on his tongue on most days, he’s already put his heart on the line. Might as well go the distance, yet again. Might as well surrender to Mingyu’s designs, yet again.

"And.” Wonwoo continues, clearing his throat while he formulates the right words, “You don't...you don’t have to worry about your outfit or makeup, you…”

Another pause, another gulp to gather every dreg of his courage, to formulate the exact tenor of emotions he wants to convey. “You look stunning, Gyu. You _are_ stunning.”

If Mingyu’s chest was rising and falling a little too feverishly earlier, now it completely stops, Mingyu’s entire six-foot-two-inch tall frame abruptly stilling from head to toe. For a millisecond, Wonwoo worries that he’s crossed an unseen boundary, that he’s made Mingyu uncomfortable somehow, that he shouldn’t have said anything at all, his stupid, _stupid_ mouth, and his stupid, _stupid_ need to comfort Mingyu and-

But in the next second, Mingyu is barrelling into him, draping his arms around Wonwoo like he’s hanging on for dear life, burying his nose in the crook of Wonwoo’s neck, his floral, ethereal scent enveloping the entire length and breadth of Wonwoo. 

Kim Mingyu, once again, pushing past the ramparts of Wonwoo’s soul, upending every paradigm of his existence, dismantling every sacred ritual, every sacred gravitational balance.

Wonwoo has no idea how to respond to this, too overwhelmed by the static electricity that fizzes through his body at Mingyu’s touch, at Mingyu’s intoxicating weight pressing against him, at Mingyu’s semi-bare chest flush against Wonwoo’s own. But it seems his hands have a mind of their own, their natural reflexes well-honed - they curve around Mingyu’s waist of their own accord, holding him steady, unable to keep from marvelling at how _right_ this feels, how his hands fit on Mingyu’s waist like seamless jigsaw pieces. 

"Come with me tonight." Mingyu murmurs against Wonwoo’s shoulder, and Wonwoo nearly _shivers_ in the wake of it, “I’m allowed to bring a plus one, so _please_ come with me tonight? I’ll feel a lot less nervous if you were there with me."

Wonwoo’s pulse thunders even louder than before, threatening to tear out of his skin, scatter its devotion _everywhere._ _Fuck, this is too much. Way too much._ Mingyu, bundled in his arms, Wonwoo’s hands barely a flimsy silk fabric away from caressing Mingyu’s bare skin, Mingyu’s breath, ghosting shadows against the length of his neck, Mingyu’s hair, tickling his once again rapidly-reddening ears. This is more than just a shift in his paradigms, more than just a sacred ritual broken, more than just mere havoc being wreaked on his existence.

This is Mingyu in his complete, resplendent glory, and they are too close now, on the brink of something that Wonwoo knows will consume him limb from limb, and-

He doesn’t know how to do this, how to deal with this. He doesn’t know how to continue holding on to any semblance of normalcy, any semblance of his sacred rituals, if he plucked the heart out of his chest and shoved it into Mingyu’s nimble palms, saying, _take it, take it and do with it what you will. It’s yours for an eternity._

Wonwoo shuts his eyes, inhales a long, staggering breath, wishes the earth would split into two and swallow him whole, once and for all. At least then he wouldn’t have to submit himself to this terrifying ordeal of _wanting,_ of wanting far too much than he has ever been allowed.

"You don't need me for that, Mingyu-yah.” He tries to make it sound casual, like the aftermath of this will leave behind no collateral damage at all, “You're going to do great tonight all on your own, you’ll see."

But the thing about collateral damage is, it’s always hard to deflect, always hard to pretend it doesn’t exist.

Mingyu extricates himself from Wonwoo’s arms a little too hastily, taking two steps back into his room as if he suddenly needs to put some distance between them. Something in his expression shutters, and Wonwoo doesn’t blame him, even if Wonwoo gets the distinct sensation that he’s done something utterly deplorable, that the words, _“I’m a massive idiot”_ are emblazoned on his forehead in big bold letters.

He should have apprehended the consequences of letting someone like Kim Mingyu worm his way into the expanses of his life, of _sharing_ the aforementioned expanses of his life with him. He should have known what it’s like to disappoint someone like Mingyu, someone who is so pure and earnest, so indomitably good in every conceivable way.

“Right, of course,” Mingyu summons up a smile anyway (because he’s _Mingyu,_ after all, nothing but cordial and generous even in the most adverse of circumstances) , but it doesn’t reach his eyes, feels the tiniest bit less dazzling, less joyous. “Who am I kidding, you must be busy with your dissertation deadlines! Ah, sorry for being such a bother, hyung. I’ll stop complaining about my silly insecurities and get out of your hair now! I cooked earlier so there’s japchae in the fridge so please heat that up and have it for dinner instead of instant ramen again, okay? I’ll see you later!”

With that, Mingyu shuts the door to his room with a hurried, resonant thud, the sound inundating every square-foot of their apartment, drowning out even the ticking of the living room mantel-clock.

And.

For the first time since Wonwoo started living with Kim Mingyu, the apartment is utterly, unimpeachably _silent,_ no uncoordinated footsteps, no lisp-ridden rambling, no little noises of surprise or delight. 

With an awful jolt, Wonwoo finds that he _hates_ it, he hates it with a visceral passion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come yell at me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/briochestitch)!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _That’s exactly the problem, isn’t it?_ Mingyu hadn’t said out loud. _There is so much more to Wonwoo than I can ever imagine. There is so much more to him than I will ever be allowed to uncover._

The apartment is predictably dark when Mingyu returns, shutting the door behind him as gingerly as possible.

Being discreet is perhaps not one of Mingyu's strongest suits, but tonight, he doesn't want to draw attention to himself at all, doesn't want his presence in their apartment to be conspicuous and  _ blatant _ like it always is. Though from the look of it, he probably doesn't even need to put in much effort - there’s no telltale beam of muted lamplight spilling out from Wonwoo’s room, signalling yet another one of his late-night dissertation-writing sprees; no sign of empty beer cans or sheaves of heavily scribbled notes strewn across the kitchen table (Wonwoo's preferred workspace). 

Wonwoo probably isn’t even up anyway, probably won’t even notice that Mingyu’s home anyway.

With a deflated sigh, Mingyu shrugs off his jacket, rubbing a tired hand against his left eyelid, not even caring if the motion ruins his eyeshadow. There’s no point anyway.

He’s spent the entire evening moping into multiple glasses of champagne, which is a level of  _ lovesick _ and  _ pathetic  _ that even Mingyu, resident hopeless romantic, pathetically lovesick loser, never thought he would descend to. Yet, here he is. 

This was supposed to be  _ his _ evening, goddamnit. The Vogue cover launch party. The fruits of his labour, of his first major magazine cover shoot, his first foray into the big leagues. The first time he physically gets to meet the editor-in-chief of the most prestigious fashion magazine in the entire world and get a personal nod of approval, a personal smile of appreciation aimed in his direction. The first time he gets to be in the same room with everyone who's  _ anyone  _ in the fashion industry, the biggest names from Seoul to Milan to Paris, all here to celebrate the one special Vogue anniversary issue for which  _ Mingyu _ graces the cover,  _ Mingyu _ of all people, the same silly old Mingyu who still cries during confession scenes of romantic dramas.

This is what he’s always wanted, isn’t it? Back when he was an aimless seventeen year old being street-scouted in his tiny rural hometown, back when he had decided, _this_ _would be it._ This would be how he escapes the dictates of his homophobic family, escapes the suffocating expectations of having to follow the path in life that his parents had charted out for him: getting into a SKY university, a respectable office job, marriage to an unsuspecting girl who’d be shielded from the knowledge of Mingyu’s sexuality and will have to be miserable all her life. 

Mingyu had always loved expressing himself through art, through music, through anything that challenged and stimulated him creatively, and working in fashion had been everything he could ever ask for. He loved losing himself in a concept or aesthetic, loved the particular sensation of being in front of a camera and not having to be silly old  _ Mingyu,  _ but pretend to be someone else entirely - someone desirable, someone invincible. Someone who hasn't always been scared shitless about navigating the real world all on his own.

But navigate it, he did. Wonwoo had been right earlier - Mingyu  _ has _ worked hard to get here, has had to juggle multiple low-paying jobs at once, has had to get humiliated and upbraided several times and yet continue to stay resilient, continue to work his way through this unforgiving industry. Eight years of modeling, of being here in Seoul all on his own (save for, perhaps, the constant presence of Seungkwan, who has always been more of a close friend and confidante than his agent), of making a living all on his own - and this one evening was supposed to its pinnacle, the shaping of a new future.

He was supposed to mingle at that party, to network and to (subtly and tastefully) pitch his talent and charm to the various other fashion magazine chief editors also present at the party. And yet-

_ You're going to do great tonight all on your own, you’ll see. _

Why was his brain a constant recurring loop of one person and just one person? Why couldn’t he stop thinking about that  _ stupid fucking hug, _ of curling against Wonwoo’s neck like it was second nature, the graze of Wonwoo's skin against his, making his veins tremble and tingle as brisk as hummingbird’s wings. Wonwoo’s arms, snug around his waist, holding onto him like it’s his salvation, heat pooling in the vicinity of Mingyu’s crotch, sending shockwaves through every inch and corner of Mingyu’s being. 

And of course, Wonwoo’s  _ rejection, _ like ice-cold water being dunked over his head. Every joule of the heat in Mingyu’s belly, extinguished. 

Things could have been worse, Mingyu  _ knows _ it.

Wonwoo was letting Mingyu down easy, was being kind and quietly sympathetic because that’s quintessentially Wonwoo, isn’t it? Lenient, even in his rejection. Indulging Mingyu, even if Mingyu is nothing but an inconvenience, is nothing but an everlasting annoyance.

_ Lovesick and pathetic,  _ that’s what Mingyu is. The worst kind of lovesick and pathetic.

“Why does it matter so much anyway?” Seungkwan had asked after the third time Mingyu had slipped over to the bar instead of trying to charm a potential employer, “It’s not like you were asking him out on a date. Why does it matter that he said no?”

“Oh, silly Seungkwannie,” Minghao had replied (he was  _ Seungkwan’s _ plus one for the evening, because Seungkwan is lucky enough to have a plus one for every evening, always. Because Seungkwan was brave enough to have declared his feelings to the love of his life, a feat that seems insurmountable to Mingyu), “Don’t you get it? It’s the only thing that matters.”

Mingyu had shut his eyes in resignation, taking an uncomfortably large gulp of his champagne, hoping that his vulnerability, his  _ pathetic lovesickness,  _ wasn’t as prominent on his face as it was on every nerve ending of his body. God,  _ he’s stupid,  _ he’s  _ so fucking stupid. _ He should have just-

“Hey,” Minghao had squeezed his arm then, halting that particular train of self-castigating thought right in its tracks. “It’s okay, Mingyu-yah. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Perhaps, there is more beyond the surface. Perhaps, there is more to Wonwoo than you think.”

Minghao’s voice was soft, flush with compassion and insight, even if Seungkwan’s eyes were sharp, narrowed, not-as-easily-forgiving (Seungkwan had a penchant for being a tad overprotective of Mingyu, a side effect of having known each other for years and years). 

But Mingyu had only let out another visceral sigh, had somberly polished off the remnants of whatever amount of bitter-tasting champagne that was still left in his glass.

_ That’s exactly the problem, isn’t it? _ Mingyu hadn’t said out loud.  _ There is so much more to Wonwoo than I can ever imagine. There is so much more to him than I will ever be allowed to uncover. _

Now,  _ here,  _ in the quiet blue-dark of the living room, punctuated only by the ticking of the clock on the mantel and the rustling of trees outside, Mingyu feels deflated all over again. God, why couldn’t he stop his mind from screeching and wobbling all over the place? Why couldn’t he just, get over the simple fact of Wonwoo not wanting to go to a stupid party with him (even if said party was actually one of the most important parties of his entire career) and  _ move the fuck on? _

He’s about to stomp off to his room, to shut the door behind him and mope some more. He’s about to sink into bed and bury his head against his  _ totoro _ plushies and cry until every torturous thought and recollection of Wonwoo goes away, until this despicable whirlwind of lovesick pathetic feelings bleed out of his system for good. He’s about to-

“Ah, you’re back.”

But he doesn't. 

He  _ doesn't,  _ because in the very next second, all he can do is stand there and gawk, mouth half-open, as a distinctly  _ awake _ Wonwoo (albeit tired and sleep-deprived, curly hair falling over his forehead in lazy, ravishing, abandon) pulls himself up from the living room couch - where he was apparently lying all along, camouflaged in the dark - and stifles a yawn.

"It was getting late," Wonwoo continues, his left hand fiddling with the hem of his faded hoodie as he walks over to where Mingyu is still frozen at the doorway, gaping at Wonwoo like he’s seen a ghost, "I was afraid you had stayed over at Seungkwan and Minghao's place tonight."

Mingyu can only blink in response, his mind back to screeching and wobbling, tumbling towards an abrupt crescendo. His heart hammers deafeningly, so loud that Mingyu is scared Wonwoo will hear it, is scared it will give away how utterly pathetic and lovesick Mingyu is.

_ What does this mean?  _ The lines of concern Wonwoo’s eyes are currently swathed in are starkly different from the concern he usually displays over a paragraph of his dissertation’s literature review or a particular gruelling day of teaching. This concern, that is tinged with a certain tentativeness, a certain poignance, Mingyu doesn’t know how to interpret. 

Mingyu hopes he isn’t reading too much into it.

(Mingyu hopes he _ is _ reading too much into it.)

"Wh-why were you afraid?" the words tumble out of his mouth, couched in that lisp Mingyu desperately fails to keep out of his voice, no matter how much he tries, that always exposes far too much of Mingyu’s intentions. “Th-that I stayed with Seungwan and Minghao?”

In a way, the question isn’t unwarranted. It’s not like Mingyu _ hasn’t  _ crashed at Seungkwan and Minghao's place before - when it gets too late, or when Mingyu gets a little too drunk on Minghao’s homemade makgeolli and lies on their couch mumbling incoherently about how pretty Wonwoo’s hair is first thing in the morning, how gorgeous Wonwoo looks when he scrunches up his nose mid-laughter.

So why this, why now? Why  _ tonight _ of all nights?

The clock ticks again, and Wonwoo sucks in a breath, like he’s stuck somewhere inbetween contemplation and apprehension. Like he’s parsing and prodding at this seemingly innocuous (yet not really innocuous at all) question through the eyes of a seasoned academic, trying to unscramble it, trying to pierce into the very meat of it like it’s his monthly research evaluation.

Mingyu has seen that look in Wonwoo’s eyes before - carefully assessing, resolutely focused - and something about it, especially  _ right now,  _ terrifies Mingyu. His heart hammers even louder, but Wonwoo seems oblivious to its whims, inching closer and closer to Mingyu until they’re barely inches apart, until Mingyu can count Wonwoo’s quivering eyelashes, until Mingyu can notice the tiniest hint of dark circles that have appeared underneath Wonwoo’s eyes (Mingyu makes a mental note to remind Wonwoo to catch up on all the sleep he’s missed out on while pulling consequent all-nighters throughout this past week).

"Because I-" Wonwoo’s voice is impossibly mellow, almost a little fragile - despite that steadfast academic focus of his, despite that unwavering, terrifyingly piercing gaze. For a millisecond, Wonwoo trails off, tethering Mingyu to the spot, staring at him like, for all intents and purposes, he is diving into Mingyu’s very soul. "Because I wanted you to come home."

Wonwoo takes another step forward, and now it’s Mingyu’s turn to suck in a breath, to hold it tightly in the divot of his chest, because this moment is a precipice - a single misstep, a single push-and-pull, and they’ll falter forever. 

"Because, I’m an idiot,” The words spill out of Wonwoo slow and subdued, like a confession, like uncharacteristic, unexpected submission. They quake over the compass of Mingyu’s cheek, making his skin prickle, sending unbidden shivers down his spine. "Because, I shouldn’t have declined being your plus one for the party when this was something that meant a lot to you. Because, I feel terrible, and I wanted to make it up to you.”

And there it is, the perfidious hammering of Mingyu’s heart, louder than the ticking of the clock on the mantel, louder than the rustling of leaves outside their window, louder than Wonwoo’s sigh, skittering along the length of Mingyu’s skin.

"Hyung, you really didn’t have to do anything-" Mingyu splutters, at a complete loss for words for possibly the first time in all twenty four years of his existence. “I...you…it’s-”

Only a few hours ago, Mingyu had been convinced that Wonwoo didn’t want anything to do with him at all, that all Mingyu was to Wonwoo was an elaborate nuisance, constantly disrupting his peace and getting in his way and having unnecessary meltdowns in front of him over whether or not posh fashion magazine editors at a work party will be impressed by him. But here he is now - Wonwoo, looking at him with that odd mixture of protracted academic conviction and heartrending tenderness - and Mingyu no longer knows what to think. Mingyu no longer knows how to respond.

"I made kimchi jjigae for you for you, Mingyu-yah. Just like you'd taught me to, all those months ago.” Wonwoo fills in the silences for Mingyu, and suddenly, there’s also a sheepish smile curving at the edge of his lips, like he’s almost embarrassed, but also painfully earnest. “It’s… it’s probably not that good, but… I know how much you love kimchi jjigae and I… consider this my apology? Please forgive me for not coming with you tonight?”

_ Fuck,  _ Mingyu wants to say - nay,  _ bellow, _ from every rooftop in their humble Gasan neighbourhood - every single cell in his body forgetting how to function, forgetting how to retain its composure, forgetting to keep his pathetic lovesickness at bay.

_ Fuck. _

Mingyu should have noticed it from the minute he walked in the door - the telltale smells of cooked broth and braised pork wafting from the kitchen, the blue clay pot (which is his personal favourite, he can’t believe Wonwoo remembered) laid out on the kitchen table instead of sheaves of Wonwoo’s scribbled notes, a flash of bubbling orange stew peeking out from underneath its rim, various side dishes encircling it - neatly served in their best porcelain bowls (that Mingyu had discovered at a gloriously discounted price at their local Saturday night market - he can’t believe Wonwoo remembered them too).

Wonwoo didn’t just make the kimchi jjigae, he made an entire, elaborate  _ feast. _

An entire, elaborate feast, with the recipes  _ he _ taught Wonwoo, consisting of  _ his _ favourite dishes (that Wonwoo remembered every last one of, right down to the watercress namul and mu saengchae). An entire, elaborate feast, made by the very same person who subsists on beer and instant ramen the minute Mingyu isn’t around to cook homemade meals or stash their fridge with abundant fresh ingredients. An entire, elaborate feast, made by the very same person who barely even stored eggs or kimchi in the refrigerator before Mingyu moved in.

An entire, elaborate feast, only for Mingyu, only  _ because of  _ Mingyu.

“You…” Mingyu splutters once more, an entire avalanche of emotion crashing through the surface, turning him lopsided with agony and ecstasy, making him dizzy with every bit of longing he has woefully repressed (or rather, has failed to repress) from the minute he first laid eyes on Wonwoo, “You… really didn’t have to, hyung.”

No one has ever done something like this for Mingyu - going out of their way to pay attention to all of Mingyu’s likes and preferences, to create something so precious and exclusive just for him, even it is an appeal for forgiveness, even if it’s probably just an isolated occurrence, something that will happen only this once.

But who will convince Mingyu’s endlessly hammering heart? It hammers and hammers, pumping foolish, irrational hope into his veins with every syncopated beat.

“I wanted to,” Maybe it is Mingyu’s clear inability to form coherent sentences right now, or perhaps it is Mingyu’s sheer, unadulterated astonishment clearly evident in the way Mingyu is staring at him - but somehow, it gives more fuel to Wonwoo’s smile, rendering it wider, a little more certain. The hammering in Mingyu’s heart reaches critical mass, a ricocheting climax, threatening to collapse in on itself - and Mingyu can’t even blame it anymore.

“I really wanted to, Mingyu-yah.” Wonwoo says, a careful hand reaching up to tuck a lock of Mingyu’s hair behind his ear, the touch making Mingyu shudder all over, “Y-you… you always look after me, even when I’m all grumpy and reluctant about it. But tonight was your special night, the biggest milestone of your career, and I just wanted to...I wanted to do something for you too. Especially after I totally screwed things up earlier. Will you…”

Wonwoo clears his throat then, like the words are hard to dislodge from within it, “Will you accept my apology?”

_ Fuck. _

Wonwoo’s eyelashes are fanned out against his brows, his smile hopeful despite it’s sheepishness, despite it’s heartstopping earnestness. Wonwoo’s hands are lingering behind the lock of hair behind Mingyu’s ear, stroking and patting it into place again and again, even if it hardly needs the added care.

And Mingyu? Mingyu is hammering heartbeats and shivering nerve endings, a lump in his throat that threatens to implode on itself, threatens to spray its contents everywhere and reveal everything he’s ever tried to bury deep within, reveal every unrealistic daydream he’s nursed about feeling the cadence of Wonwoo’s deep, rumbly baritone against his mouth, tasting every longitude and latitude of it. 

Mingyu? Mingyu is  _ weak,  _ entirely at the mercy of Jeon Wonwoo’s impossible lure, lovesick and pathetic.

Mingyu can only smile back, his canine hopelessly sticking out like it always does, no matter how suave he tries to be about it around Wonwoo, “Of course, I will, hyung. How can I not?”

\---

For all his disavowal of actual ingestable human food ( _ ie: _ anything that is not made in a microwave or electric kettle), Wonwoo is a  _ surprisingly _ good cook.

“Oh my god,” Mingyu can’t help the embarrassingly loud sigh of approval that slips out of him after the very first bite of the kimchi jjigae (not unlike the moans of pleasure Wonwoo responds to Mingyu’s cooking with), “You should make this every single day, hyung,  _ oh my god, what the fuck.” _

Wonwoo chuckles shyly, his ears doused bright red (the most irresistible little quirk of his), his hands subconsciously reaching up to the bridge of his nose to slide his glasses upwards (a nervous tic of his that often manifests itself whenever Wonwoo is too embarrassed to know what to do with his hands). Mingyu hates that he notices so much about Wonwoo, hates that he’s memorised every one of Wonwoo’s errant habits, every minuscule shift in body language.

“I’m not that good,” Wonwoo murmurs, capturing a segment of spiced pork with his chopsticks, his shoulders almost curling inwards from Mingyu’s praise, from being  _ flustered _ by Mingyu’s praise, “You’re just being nice.”

This side of Wonwoo - guard down, barriers discarded, enticingly  _ open _ and exposed like an oyster shell revealing the pearl couched within it - is rare serendipity. It’s something that happens only past two am, when they’re at the kitchen table like this, exhausted of having to  _ be  _ somebody, of having to hold their cards close to their chest, of having to tiptoe around their true feelings, their true selves. Right now, they are just two people who share space and time, two people in a singular, breathless instance of being in each other’s orbit, of  _ understanding _ each other’s orbit like no one else has before.

It is only in these moments that Mingyu is allowed to  _ uncover _ Wonwoo, is allowed to let go of any pretence of  _ not _ being under the permanent spell of this cute, wonderful boy, who is frighteningly intelligent even if he can be oddly neglecting of his own basic needs, who prefers silence, but always indulges Mingyu’s inability to be anything but, never once asking Mingyu to alter who he is, how he talks, how he lives. This cute, wonderful boy, who will always help Mrs Kwon from next door carry her groceries up three flights of stairs and read the labels of her arthritis medication for her. This cute, wonderful boy, who will always help the kids that live in their building with their Korean history homework, no matter how much he pretends to grumble and bemoan it. This cute, wonderful boy, who will forget to eat dinner when he’s too immersed in work, but will never forget to keep an abundant supply of cat treats in his pocket, so he can feed every stray cat in their neighbourhood. This cute, wonderful boy, who always smiles at Mingyu’s jokes no matter how silly and nonsensical they are, who holds him close in the middle of a major meltdown and tells him,  _ go out there and just be yourself, yeah? Everyone will love you. _

The thing about Mingyu is: not everyone loves it when Mingyu is himself. He’s loud, talkative, clumsy, graceless - a little  _ too eager  _ to please, a little  _ too much  _ with his affection, a little  _ too  _ naive, a little  _ too _ gullible. There’s a reason his parents didn’t want him, there’s a reason his romantic relationships often end in unmitigated disaster - with Mingyu always too invested, and the other person deeply resenting Mingyu's  _ too-much-ness. _

But Wonwoo is different, has forever been different. Wonwoo let Mingyu tug him along to a convenience store in the middle of intense, pouring rain the very first day they met. Wonwoo waters the growing assortment of houseplants and succulents Mingyu has begun collecting in their living room windowsill, in their cosy little balcony. Wonwoo listens when Mingyu blathers on and on about his day, always says the right things, always asks the right questions (even if his comments and questions are brief in comparison to Mingyu’s long and meandering diatribes).

Wonwoo somehow thinks that Mingyu will be loved simply by being himself, Wonwoo somehow thinks Mingyu’s praise is worth treasuring enough to blush in its aftermath, to get surreptitiously pleased in its aftermath. And Mingyu thinks his heart will never stop hammering to the quiet rhythm of Wonwoo’s presence, and he finds that he’s oddly okay with this phenomenon.

“I’m not,” Mingyu replies, unable to keep the lovesick grin off his face (hoping that Wonwoo doesn’t notice exactly how lovesick it is), “I really think the food is wonderful, hyung. I feel- I feel privileged that you cooked it for me.”

“ _ Yaah, _ ” Wonwoo’s ear-blush deepens, and he attempts to conceal it with his sweater-pawed hands, but it’s already too late, Mingyu is already leaning forward, drinking in that breathtaking nose scrunch, the breathtaking spot of colour around his ears, like witnessing the first rays of sunlight after a desolate storm. “It’s really not, I just... I just wanted to-”

“Do something nice for me, I know,” Mingyu’s grin is brighter now, the hope that has been steadily unfurling in his chest overwhelming him, flooding his senses with a familiar warmth, “And I love it, so let me tell you how much I appreciate it, okay?”

“Okay,” Wonwoo’s voice is muffled against the sleeve that now covers the tip of his nose too, and it’s so terribly adorable _ ,  _ Mingyu can’t hold back an (equally lovesick) chuckle, can’t dampen the hope currently saturating his senses. “I’m glad you like it Mingyu-yah, I really wasn’t sure if I was seasoning the meat right.”

“The meat is perfectly seasoned hyung,” Mingyu doesn’t know what it is that suddenly emboldens him - perhaps the sight of Wonwoo’s reddening ears, the sight of Wonwoo’s rare, adorable shyness - but he takes the plunge. He lays a gentle hand on Wonwoo’s sweater-pawed arms and slowly lowers them from the various angles of Wonwoo’s face, letting those delicate, flushed ears glow under their muted kitchen lights.  _ “Really.” _

And perhaps, the gesture has emboldened Wonwoo too, has dissolved another barrier between the two of them, has uncovered another latent facet about him. Wonwoo leans into Mingyu’s touch, leans forward towards  _ Mingyu,  _ lets their feet entangle underneath the table.

“How was it?” He whispers, the words spiralling between the thin strip of air that separates the two of them, “How was the party? How was it like, seeing yourself on the cover of Vogue?”

Mingyu only smiles, a tad bittersweet, once again letting his hammering heart get the better of him. “It was like everything I’ve ever imagined it to be,” he sighs, pushing the balls of his socked feet against the crook of Wonwoo’s ankle, “But I missed you, I missed you  _ terribly, _ throughout. All night, I kept wishing you’d been there to experience it with me. Was that stupid of me, hyung?”

As soon as he says it, regret coats his tongue.  _ Fuck, why can’t he ever keep his huge mouth shut? _ His mind is wobbling and screeching again, chafing against itself, desperately trying to find a way to backtrack, so Wonwoo wouldn’t know just how much he means what he said, just how pathetically lovesick he constantly,  _ constantly _ is. 

God,  _ why is he like this? Why can’t he ever stop being too eager, being too much? This is why he scares away everyone he’s ever cared about. _

But before Mingyu can strategise his retreat, can come up with a way to undo the sincerity of that statement, Wonwoo, once again, defies his expectations.

Instead of being scared away, instead of running for the hills, instead of being put off by Mingyu’s pathetic lovesickness - Wonwoo stays unflinchingly convinced that Mingyu _ isn’t, _ infact,  _ too much. _

“No it wasn’t stupid of you, Mingyu-yah,” Wonwoo whispers, and the words are punctuated by a reciprocation - the planes of Wonwoo’s feet responding to Mingyu’s gentle urging, leaning into Mingyu’s strawberry-socked touch. “It wasn’t.”

\---

Jeon Wonwoo considers himself decently adept at noticing changes in a particular environment. After all, ever since Kim Mingyu stumbled into his ramshackle two-bedroom apartment (and as a consequence, stumbled into his ramshackle little life), change is all he’s known. Changes in routine, changes in paradigms, changes in the way his heart responds to a certain crinkly-eyed, crooked-canined grin, to large, uncoordinated footsteps vibrating against hardwood floors, to coming home to the smell of fresh  _ neung-geum  _ being wedged open on kitchen countertops.

But after the night he cooks the kimchi jjigae in a desperate attempt to make amends for his stupidity, something changes in a way he no longer knows how to comprehend.

In all essence, Mingyu is still Mingyu, still clumsy and loud, kind and infinitely caring - still cooking and cleaning in all his unbridled glee, still singing to his succulents while he nurtures and corrals the soil around their roots, still exclaiming at every puppy that crosses the street and bringing home camellia blossoms cradled in his palms. But there is also something else, something more meaningful, something that is continuously simmering in the liminal spaces between them - cautious, yet staggeringly intimate.

It starts with the touches, seemingly casual, but carrying immeasurable weight. Mingyu maneuvering his callused, nimble hands over Wonwoo’s while teaching him how to knead dumpling dough; Mingyu anchoring his nose against the arc of Wonwoo’s shoulder when they’re curled up on the couch watching their favourite drama; Mingyu offering to fasten Wonwoo’s ties for him in the mornings, his fingers rummaging the length of Wonwoo’s neck like thick velvet, graceful and assiduous.

And then, there’s-

“ _ Hyung,”  _ A lisp-ridden whine outside his bedroom door, punctuated by a heavy pout, by groggy eyes and oversized rilakkuma pyjamas - even if it’s well past midnight, “I think there’s a spider in my room! Can I sleep with you tonight? I’m terribly frightened of spiders, hyung!  _ Please? _ ”

And Wonwoo, eternally unable to say no, sighing in defeat, because he’s powerless before the jut of Mingyu’s lower lip, before Mingyu’s sweetly imploring chestnut-brown eyes (that are  _ inexcusably _ pretty, even when groggy). 

And then there’s Mingyu, climbing in beside him, immediately making himself comfortable in Wonwoo’s bed, immediately burrowing all six feet two inches of himself into the plateaus of Wonwoo’s chest, as if this is where he’s always belonged, his ultimate domain and conquest. Mingyu dozes off in an instant, his tiny (ridiculously endearing) snores reverberating between the surface of their joined bodies, his nose moles resplendent even in the dark - and Wonwoo lies there all night, arm half-suspended atop the curvature of Mingyu’s waist, unsure whether he’s allowed to  _ hold,  _ whether he’s allowed to envelop himself around Mingyu’s gorgeous, infinitely tempting form, and never let go.

“That’s cuddling,” Seungcheol remarks the next day, over the terrible coffee they serve at the University cafeteria, “You guys were  _ cuddling.” _

Wonwoo groans into his half-eaten plate of egg kimbap, wishing, once again, that the earth would split in two and swallow him whole so he would never have to replay the specific feeling of Kim Mingyu snug against his pelvis, their hearts beating in tandem. Every nerve and synapse in his body has simply stopped attempting to decipher what all of this  _ means _ \- the sudden closeness, the breaching of an unseen boundary, the copious touching that makes him feel a little bit maniacal every single time. But-

“It wasn’t just cuddling, Cheolie, it was  _ spooning,”  _ chimes in Jeonghan from beside Seungcheol, his head resting on Seungcheol’s shoulder (their posture almost makes Wonwoo  _ miss  _ how Mingyu’s hair tickles his neck when Mingyu is the one leaning against him, how Mingyu’s giggles echo underneath his ear whenever something silly happens in the drama they’re watching together, how every absent sound Mingyu lets out indelibly sears itself into Wonwoo’s very bones. He hates it, hates that every stupid, innocuous thing that happens to him now correlates only to thoughts of Mingyu), “Our darling Wonu was  _ spooning _ his hot underwear-model roommate.”

But. Most of all, Wonwoo regrets telling his friends about  _ any _ of it. 

Sure, he’s known Seungcheol and Jeonghan since their undergraduate days - he'd even shared a dorm with them a long time ago, and were among his more tolerable pre-Mingyu roommates, until they began dating and became _ that _ nauseatingly affectionate couple who couldn’t keep their hands to themselves for even a millisecond. Jeonghan is the heartthrob of the Physics department, all glib anime protagonist attractiveness and devil-may-care charm, but it only conceals what a massive nerd he is deep within, how he can recite the complete and unabridged Bohr-Einstein quantum mechanics debates by memory. Seungcheol, on the other hand, is more overt about his nerdiness - a fellow Linguistics PhD scholar who could talk to you about the semiotic differences between ancient  _ Goguryeo _ and  _ Puyo _ dialects for hours, and still find time to explain his  _ League of Legends Summoner’s Rift _ gameplay. It’s a miracle the two of them found each other, but in a bizarre sort of way, it makes sense - _ they _ make sense. 

While Wonwoo loves them both dearly, he despises when they gang up on him like this, when they pierce into the very fulcrum of everything that has been tormenting him, when they push him to confront every feeling he’s desperately avoiding confronting.

“Leave me alone, hyung,” Wonwoo groans again, but it simply makes Jeonghan beam in the most annoyingly smug of ways, it simply makes Seungcheol chuckle with unrepentant glee.

“How can we, when you keep pining like a tragic  _ manhwa _ hero?” Wonwoo is sure Seungcheol and Jeonghan are high-fiving underneath the cafeteria table, and  _ god, _ one would think his best friends wouldn’t derive  _ this  _ much pleasure from his ceaseless misery. And yet, here they are, smirking at the prospect of Wonwoo’s ever-impending decline and fall.

“I’m not pining-” Wonwoo begins, but it sounds blatantly insincere, even to his own ears. Jeonghan joins Seungcheol in chuckling - except it sounds more like a villainous cackle, the triumphant assertion of a man who knows he’s about to have the last word on this subject, no matter what weak defense Wonwoo comes up with. “I’m  _ not _ pining. Mingyu and I are just, uh... we’re just good roommates. We’re just good at living in the same apartment, that’s all.”

“Yeah, right,” Jeonghan scoffs, his evil, disgustingly smug smirk never faltering for even a second, “I’ve stalked Mingyu’s instagram, Wonwoo-yah. He’s  _ hot,  _ and you spent the entire night spooning him. That would be considered an elaborate marriage ritual during the Joseon period - aren’t I right, Cheolie?”

“You are, _ jagiya, _ you are.” Seungcheol replies, making exaggerated show of kissing Jeonghan’s hand, not even _ trying _ to conceal how much he’s enjoying this.

“I hate you,” Wonwoo stuffs a mournful bite of kimbap into his mouth, aware that he’s lost this battle for good, “I hate you both so much.”

But Jeonghan and Seungcheol only share a single knowing look, only stare back at Wonwoo with identically gleaming eyes that say, _ you’re done for, Jeon Wonwoo. You can’t fool us anymore. _

And all Wonwoo can do is wash down the kimbap on his tongue with a liberal sip of terrible coffee, hoping that its bitterness will help him ignore the aching in the distinct vicinity of his chest. The very spot where Mingyu had settled into the previous night.

\--

Before he knows it, it’s February, and the final semester of Wonwoo’s PhD tenure is nearing its conclusion with only the last of his graduate seminars remaining. In another whirlwind series of days, it is an unreasonably cold Monday afternoon, droplets of falling snow fogging up Wonwoo’s glasses, and he trudges over to Seoul National University’s Languages and Linguistics Wing to hand in what is pretty much his life’s work at this point: his  _ complete, _ peer-reviewed,  _ An Evolutionary Analysis of Gendered Codes of Politeness In Korean Honorifics Through The Ages: A Dissertation by Jeon Wonwoo. _

It should feel like a massive weight off his shoulders - and it is, it definitely  _ is _ \- but his postgraduate work is far from over. There still remains one last gauntlet to conquer, the only gauntlet that matters, that which will cinch the ultimate verdict on whether or not Jeon Wonwoo has indeed emerged victorious: 

Defending his dissertation before a panel of five of the Linguistics Department’s most ruthless and unforgiving professors.

But some small mercies exist, even if they’re couched within not-so-small mercies.

All of a sudden, Wonwoo is so busy he barely has any time to breathe, much less dwell on his increasingly expanding.. _.affinity _ for Mingyu, in the way Wonwoo has begun involuntarily giving in to it, has begun gravitating towards Mingyu’s casual, momentous touches. 

And therein lies the small mercy: being so absorbed in his honey-lemon-tea-fuelled all-nighters, that he forgets to be tormented by this frequent closeness between him and Mingyu. He can pretend this is something entirely commonplace, something  _ all  _ roommates share - after all, isn’t it natural to be pulled into the tightest embrace when said roommate comes home jubilant and overjoyed because of a new job offer (this time, an ad campaign for Hugo Boss), isn’t it natural to be kissed on the forehead by said roommate, with a tenderly whispered  _ goodnight hyung, don’t stay up too long, okay?  _ Isn’t it natural to be tucked into his warmest quilt by said roommate when he accidentally dozes off on the couch at five am, buried among piles and piles of illegibly scribbled notes.

But the not-so-small mercy, ofcourse, is the crippling pressure of  _ knowing _ his dissertation inside and out, from preface to bibliography; of running through countless possible scenarios of every possible point that could be dissected or scrutinised by the panel, and coming up with a possible response for every single one.

Five years of labouring away at this - abstract after abstract, chapter after chapter, qualitative survey after qualitative survey, graduate publication after graduate publication, graduate conference after conference - only for  _ this _ to be the ultimate culmination of it all, the ultimate barometer of his academic success. He  _ needs  _ to ace his dissertation defence,  _ needs _ to convince the Linguistics department of Seoul National University that his research is indeed exemplary and ground-breaking, that he does, indeed, deserve every ounce of this doctorate.

_ Dr Jeon Wonwoo. He’ll be Dr Jeon Wonwoo. _

The very prospect of it sends an unbidden thrill down his spine, even if it feels a tad surreal. Throughout his life, he's been labeled everything between "strange" and "pretentious" and "pedantic" for embarking on a path in life where every waking moment was devoted to the pursuit of knowledge -  _ It's not something boys from middle class families can afford to do,  _ his father had once snidely remarked,  _ You'll have to struggle for years just to get a stable teaching or research position with actual job security. You'll be past thirty and still earning peanuts.  _

And it was true, it was all true - perhaps this has always been a passion that is far beyond his means, that is expensive and esoteric and thoroughly impervious to small-town boys from middle-class families like him. All his cousins and old schoolmates who opted for financially secure nine-to-five corporate jobs currently earn in six figures, while Wonwoo is on the forlorn brink of twenty-six and still barely scraping through a month's rent on his meagre PhD and undergraduate teaching stipend. But despite it all, he has no complaints. He  _ studies _ for a living,  _ learns _ for a living, deconstructs and analyses patterns of language for a living - and as much he is occasionally prone to complaining about the workload and the abominable pay, he finds every single aspect of it endlessly exhilarating. He wouldn’t trade this for anything else.

Even now, even amidst the mounting anxiety around dissertation defence day steadily approaching, amidst his tenth consecutive sleepless night polishing and sprucing his illegibly scribbled notes, of running through his literature review and research methodology explanations again and again and again - he feels oddly invigorated by it all. There is something inherently poetic about the process of relearning the quirks and nuances of his own writing - something weird and wonderful and intoxicating that fills him with a manic sort of energy, like he will ricochet out of his skin any second.

“It’s time for a break, hyung,” comes a familiar whisper, the familiar squeeze of a delicate, splayed hand along his shoulder-blades. "You've been at this for hours."

It's like clockwork, as universal as the turning of the seasons, as inevitable as silver-winged clouds after torrential rain: Mingyu, coaxing Wonwoo out of his frenzy with soft, deliberate brushes of skin-against-skin, with crescent-moon eyes dripping honey-warmth.

There is tension accumulated in the small of Wonwoo’s back, buzzing with a tenuous mixture of excitement and exhaustion, and he only feels it chafing at him  _ now,  _ now that Mingyu’s touch his pierced through his caffeine-fueled dissertation-defence-polishing daze. But what is also like clockwork: that tension flooding out of him in an instant, with a single deft rub of Mingyu’s finger against the nape of Wonwoo’s neck, a simple stroking of the ends of Wonwoo’s curls. It’s a dam being cathartically unleashed, after days and days of being restrained. 

"Maybe you're right," Wonwoo acquiesces, leaning back against his chair in surrender (leaning  _ into _ Mingyu's touch in surender), and carelessly shutting the lid of his laptop. "I've been reading the same paragraph for the past twenty minutes anyway. God, I need sleep."

" _ That _ you definitely do," Mingyu chuckles, his hands travelling from the junction of Wonwoo's shoulder to the curve of his bicep, the motion winnowing against the pinpricks of hair on Wonwoo’s forearm, windmill in a breeze, "But I also know what else you need."

Despite the sudden flush of red around his ears, the whiplash in his heartbeat, the sweltering heat building where Mingyu’s palms are poised on the exposed skin of his elbow, Wonwoo still can't help but be a little curious.

He turns around to face Mingyu, chin turned up to meet Mingyu's crescent-moon eyes head-on, attempting to drown out the tremors currently plaguing his chest, threatening to torpedo him from within. Everything about Mingyu radiates golden-hued mirth and affection, radiates care and consideration and the constant, undefeated will to always do  _ good _ and-

It never gets old. The collective force of what makes up Mingyu - all the sincerity and kindness and the unconditional compassion - it never gets old.

Wonwoo is always a little destroyed by it.

"Wh-what do I need?" Wonwoo asks, trying to keep the quiver in his voice (in his entire  _ being _ ) at bay, but failing miserably, like always.

But Mingyu's response is nothing but another devastating flash of his crooked-canined grin, his right hand sliding down from Wonwoo's bicep to gently fondle Wonwoo's fingers, tugging at them the slightest bit as if to signal,  _ come on, come with me. _

And who is Wonwoo to ever decline Kim Mingyu? Who is Wonwoo to ever resist the temptation of being pulled along by Kim Mingyu to destinations unknown - be it to a convenience store in the middle of stubborn October rain or  _ now,  _ down three flights of stairs to the deserted alley behind their apartment building, where discarded trashcans and dilapidated electrical poles make themselves home.

But it’s not just the trashcans or electrical poles that make this particular back-alley special, that make Wonwoo religiously frequent the place at least two times a day, bearing a bountiful supply of dried tuna or chicken bits.

It's the-

"Byulji-ah! Namsun-ah! Ddoori-yah!" Wonwoo exclaims, but before the words are even properly out, a scrambling of tiny paws are already yanking at his trousers, their enthusiastic purring echoing across the empty street, "Oh babies, did you miss me?” He bends into a squat, so Namsun (a tall, grey tabby) and Ddoori (a jet-black siamese cat with piercing golden eyes) can saunter into his lap, and immediately begin licking his fingers and nudging their heads against his thigh. Byulji, the tiniest of the lot (a brown-striped Bengal cat), opts to climb on top of Wonwoo’s shoulder and settle in the valley of his neck, her purrs quieter, but no less tenacious.

Wonwoo first began looking after these cats two years ago, after the fateful night Namsun had scaled inches and inches of window grilles to finally land up in Wonwoo’s kitchen in desperate search for food. And what cruel irony that she’d chosen Wonwoo’s kitchen of all kitchens as her designated foraging destination - this was long before Mingyu’s conquest of his desolate refrigerator, and all he’d had at home was a two-day old carton of milk. Yet, when he’d served it up as neatly as he could in the only clean bowl he could find, Namsun had lapped away at it with unabashed gusto, and the sight of it had melted Wonwoo’s insides into the sappiest of puddles. She was just _ so cute _ and  _ so small,  _ staring up at him with those innocent eyes - despite technically being a trespasser in his home - and Wonwoo was already wrapped around her tiny paws within seconds, was already cradling her in his arms and taking her outside to make sure she had a warm corner to sleep in (he would’ve adopted her himself, if only he hadn’t been living alone at that point and wasn’t entirely unequipped to take proper care of his own self, much less another living breathing individual who required dedicated attention). 

But as soon as Wonwoo had bundled her into an abandoned cardboard box against the rust-coated walls of this very same back-alley, two other furry apparitions had instantly materialised at his feet, melting his insides once again with their sweet, beseeching  _ meows.  _ And well-

The rest, as they say, is history. Or, in this case, an ongoing saga of Wonwoo being utterly in the thrall of three little stray cats who have become an indelible part of his life, even if he’s forgotten to feed them in the maddening chaos of dissertation-defence-prep.

“I'm sorry I haven't been along to see you these past few days, lovelies, I've been so swamped-” He gently strokes Ddoori’s head while Namsun happily paws away at the fraying fabric of his trousers, fascinated by the feel of the cotton. Byulji purrs again, a little louder this time, and Wonwoo giggles at her persistent attempts to monopolise his undivided attention, reaching up with his other hand to scratch behind her ear too. “Have you been well, my babies? I promise I’ll come hang out with you regularly after this Thursday, okay? Just let me get done with my defence, and then I’ll have a whole week off to spend time with you! I mean, yeah, I’ll still be teaching my undergrad class, but that’s only a couple of hours a day, I promise I'll have time for you!”

To any stray bystander, this whole exchange might seem utterly ludicrous. Wonwoo, whispering to creatures of the furry variety like they have any actual understanding of what a PhD dissertation even  _ is, _ much less comprehend what he's actually saying. But it’s always been this way. Wonwoo has always considered them kindred spirits, a little lost and lonely like Wonwoo has always been (at least, before he met Mingyu), always on the outskirts of life, like Wonwoo has always been, always contending with unforeseen odds to search for a sense of stability, like Wonwoo continuously is. 

Even if their response to Wonwoo’s mutterings is nothing but a low snarl because he seems to be petting Ddoori more than Namsun, a flapping of toenails against his cheekbones because Byulji wants him to scratch her belly too, Wonwoo thinks that they  _ understand  _ him, they  _ empathise  _ with him.

“Ah, I’ve missed you too, sweethearts.” Wonwoo smiles as he complies with Byulji’s insistent request, beginning to rub the underside of her belly with the globes of his knuckles. Ddoori and Namsun continue to playfully brawl and bicker with each other and Wonwoo holds their front paws together with his left hand, as if to drive home,  _ hey, get along, you two! Be nice! _

“Were you okay while I was away?” Wonwoo continues, staring down at his cat-babies with an embarrassingly enamoured expression, “Did you eat properly?”

“Actually,” Mingyu clears his throat, and Wonwoo is nearly startled out of his squat, having gotten so immersed in petting the cats that he’d momentarily forgotten Mingyu was here too,  _ watching _ him pet said cats, watching him sagely  _ discuss his academic workload _ with said cats. 

Considering this is Mingyu, it truly is a marvel that he’s been so quiet all along - so quiet that Wonwoo almost didn’t register his presence. It's a marvel that he’s been simply observing, instead of chiming in with any of the several long diatribes that is usually on the tip of his tongue in any given situation.

“You have nothing to worry about, hyung. I’ve...um…” Mingyu trails off for a second, shuffling from one feet to the other in a very obvious nervous tick, “I’ve-I’ve been bringing them food for the past few days.”

_ What. _

“What?” And all of a sudden, Byulji’s belly rubs and Namsun and Ddoori’s bickering temporarily cease to matter - all Wonwoo can do is stare stupefied at Mingyu, eyes wide in incredulity and awe. “You...uh… what?”

The shadow of a fond smile that was so far hovering at the edge of Mingyu’s mouth fades in an instant, and he captures his bottom lip between his teeth like he always does when he’s suddenly rendered self-conscious, “Ah,  _ really, _ hyung, I took good care of them, I swear! I brought them cat treats from the stash you keep in the kitchen cabinet beside the rice cooker! I made sure they finished every bite so they wouldn’t get hungry later!! I also brought them some of the Miyeok-guk I made last night and they ate it up happily!”

Wonwoo continues to be stupefied, continues to simply blink back at Mingyu, oblivious to the sudden cacophonous meowing all three cats have descended into at the loss of Wonwoo's petting, “But-”

“Byulji was feeling a little ill on Saturday, but I got her a warm blanket and some vitamins and she seemed fine the next morning! I checked on her thrice that day!! Gave her extra food too!!” 

Eight months of living together and Wonwoo has learned to dissect the myriad meanings hidden behind the ways in which Mingyu rambles. There is the joyful rambling, the nervous rambling, the overeager rambling, the whiny rambling. And then there's this:

The words tumbling out at lightning speed, in rough inflections, truncated syllables colliding into each other, merging all into a single barely-coherent entity. 

By now, Wonwoo knows that Mingyu only rambles like this when he fears he has overstepped, when he feels like he has to overexplain his intentions, when he has to go the extra mile to overcompensate for transgressing.

But he  _ doesn't _ have to, not for this, not to Wonwoo. Mingyu can never overstep with him, no matter how much Wonwoo complains about his world being upended, his centre of gravity being toppled, his paradigms being altered, all by one impossible man.

Not to Wonwoo, when all Wonwoo has seen in Mingyu from day one, is his sincerity, is his unflinching goodness.

“Should I have taken her to the vet, hyung?" Mingyu continues, eyes suddenly stricken as he continues to overcompensate, continues to work himself into a panic, " _ Oh my god, _ I should have, shouldn’t I? I didn’t know if she’s had her shots and I didn’t research enough to find out where the nearest vet is, but  _ I should have _ , oh my god, what if she contracts a lifelong disease because of me-”

Okay, that's enough. Wonwoo won't let him spiral any longer, not on his watch.

“Hey,  _ hey,  _ Mingyu-yah,” Wonwoo intervenes, trying to infuse his voice with as much calm and reassurance as he can muster, “You did  _ good,  _ okay? Byulji has weak bones, so she gets tired and sick sometimes, but all it takes is some food and rest and she goes back to normal. See? She’s totally fine now!”

As if to demonstrate the fact even further, he strokes a particularly sensitive spot on Byulji’s belly and Byulji's discordant meowing turns into a satisfied yelp (for all her posturing, she's easy to please, that one), and she happily sinks her toenails back into the fabric of Wonwoo’s sleep-shirt. Wonwoo can't help but giggle again at her antics, but never, for a single moment, takes his eyes off Mingyu - who looks remarkably more relaxed after watching Byulji’s response, that fond half-smile returning to his lips. 

“Ah, okay,” Mingyu murmurs, so bashful and quiet that Wonwoo would have almost missed it if it weren't for the relative silence of their surroundings, no cars whizzing past at this hour, no alarms ringing. “I.. I know the cats mean a lot to you, hyung.. and I… just wanted to make sure they were cared for while you were busy studying for your dissertation defence.”

“You’re always doing that, aren’t you?” The words slip out of Wonwoo almost involuntary, his pulse deafening in his ears. His right hand goes back to petting the soft, fuzzy surface of Namsun’s head, but he cannot stop it from trembling a little, overwhelmed by this absurd explosion of affection he’s suddenly experiencing. “Always taking care of others.”

“Ah, hyung, it’s nothing,” A distinct blush glazes itself around Mingyu’s cheekbones. He's so  _ stunning, _ even under the muted glow of ochre-yellow streetlights, even without the flourish of glittery make-up, even when completely unfiltered, just the two of them in a deserted back-alley, surrounded by a trio of stray cats. “I like doing it.” 

There’s a pregnant pause then, underlined only by Namsun’s willful purring, by the bustling of Byulji’s feet against the pale cotton of his sleepshirt, and-

And Wonwoo thinks that something is flickering in the shadows of Mingyu’s face right now, something pivotal and significant, something that can destroy every ounce of reason Wonwoo is treacherously holding on to. 

But for the life of him, Wonwoo doesn’t know what it is, cannot disentangle the secrets which lie in the unseen depths of Mingyu’s chestnut-brown eyes, cannot find his footing in the quicksand he’s steadily sinking into.

“But you’re a dog person,” is what Wonwoo ultimately ends up blurting out, sounding incredibly moronic even to himself, “You… I didn’t even know you liked cats.”

That fond half-smile at the edge of Mingyu’s lips now splays itself out, stretching across the latitude of Mingyu’s mouth, blossoming like wild magnolias. It knocks the breath right out of Wonwoo’s lungs, as it often does - that gorgeously crooked canine protruding out once again, vivid and endlessly endearing.

But at the same time, there’s something uncharacteristically melancholic about that smile, something oddly resigned. It’s the subtlest hunching of Mingyu’s shoulders, it’s a surreptitious sigh that Wonwoo notices only because he knows where to look.

And now Wonwoo is again thrown for a complete loop, once again struggling to form the right words, struggling to keep the butterflies in his stomach at bay.

“But  _ you  _ like cats,” Mingyu replies, a bittersweet note to his lisp, that strange flicker on his face still potent, “And I’m starting to realise that being a cat person has its merits too.”

Wonwoo can only stare back at Mingyu, heart in his hands, shudder in his breath, a million questions warring for precedence at the base of his throat. 

He wants to ask,  _ What does this mean? Why would you do all of that, just for me? How did you know I spend time with these cats in the first place? How did you know about my growing stash of cat treats? How did you know how to take care of them? How do you always know how to take care of  _ **_me_ ** _ \- how did you know that bringing me here is the exact thing I needed to get my mind off my dissertation? Why do you suddenly seem so strange - like I’ve either said the wrong thing, or done the wrong thing? Why why why- _

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t say any of it out loud. He knows he can’t.

He’s too much of a coward.

But instead, what comes out of his mouth - with a melancholic smile to rival Mingyu’s - “Do you want to pet the cats too? I...I think they’ll like it.”

And yeah, there’s no doubt that he  _ is _ a coward - a coward, an idiot, a massive irredeemable fool - but in that moment, perhaps, just  _ perhaps, _ it’s the right thing to say.

Mingyu’s smile gets less melancholic, even if his eye-crinkles are still a little subdued than usual, even if the usual perpetual bounce in his step is now a hesitant tiptoe. Yet, as Mingyu slowly walks over to Wonwoo, and nearly folds himself into half to match Wonwoo's squat, Wonwoo sees it - that same lust for life, that same unbridled delight at even the simplest, most of innocuous of things, all of it that is innately Mingyu. All of the things that make Mingyu so incomparably beautiful.

“I thought you’d never ask, hyung,” Mingyu says, sinking into easy, unpracticed banter like nothing has changed between them - like nothing  _ will _ change between them - and extends a tentative hand towards Ddoori’s gossmer-brown fur.

All three cats meow in unison, expressing their resounding approval for this brand new stranger who has apparently been pampering them and caring for them for over a week now, without Wonwoo even realising it.

_ Yeah,  _ Wonwoo thinks, as he watches Namsun and Ddoori immediately cease their bickering to stare up at Mingyu with large awestruck eyes, as he watches Byulji crawl down his shoulder and settle into the rifts of Mingyu's lap, as he watches all three cats suddenly abandon everything else - even Wonwoo himself - simply to fawn over Mingyu, simply to purr enthusiastically everytime Mingyu responds to their antics with an adorable, high-pitched wheeze.  _ They get it.  _

_ They get what it's like to be utterly bewitched by Kim Mingyu. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come yell at me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/briochestitch)!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s such an essential component of who he is now, he’ll have to start putting it on his official résumé: _Kim Mingyu, 24, professional model, pathetically lovesick about his cute roommate._

**to: cute roommate hyung <3**

hwaiting today too, wonu hyung!!!! you will do sooo well, i just know it!! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧  
sorry i had to leave before you woke up!! had to be on set by 5 am :( but don’t worry!!! i made bibimbap and left it on the kitchen table for you!!! eat a proper breakfast before you leave home, okay? good luck!!! (✿◠‿◠)

**to: cute roommate hyung <3**

ps- i'll be back by 6.30 pm!! got my paycheck from hugo boss yesterday so i’m buying us some expensive wine and bulgogi and we can celebrate together tonight! wait for me, yeah?

Mingyu's doing that thing again: being incorrigibly lovesick and pathetic, no matter how much he attempts to keep it at bay.

All through his morning shoot, he’s kept finding excuses to drift towards his phone and feverishly refresh his kkt chat with Wonwoo, hoping - with hammering heart held in dubious balance - that Wonwoo has replied to the disgustingly eager string of messages he left him earlier.

But alas, Mingyu’s luck is wearing thin today. There’s that glaring green tick taunting him mercilessly, indicating that _Wonwoo has,_ he _has_ seen every last bit of Mingyu’s pathetically lovesick rambling, and yet there’s nothing, not a single word of acknowledgement.

 _He’s busy,_ Mingyu tries to reassure himself. After all, today is the fateful day - the day Wonwoo has been preparing for throughout his entire illustrious academic career - his dissertation defence. Mingyu has seen how much effort, how much single-minded dedication and commitment Wonwoo has put into this, has witnessed the sleepless nights and countless scribbled notes and the equally copious cups of honey lemon tea. _Of course_ Wonwoo has far more important things to do today than reply to Mingyu’s silly (pathetic, lovesick) messages, is probably already knee-deep into revising his notes one last time while he waits for his name to be called by the graduate panel.

After all, Mingyu probably _isn’t_ significant enough to warrant being the primary thought on Wonwoo’s mind. How could he be, when Wonwoo is so startlingly brilliant, so utterly beyond even the vicinity of Mingyu’s league? How could he be, when Mingyu is...well Mingyu - loud, clumsy, talkative, overeager, despicably pathetic and lovesick. Mingyu dropped out of high school before he could graduate, and college was hardly ever in the horizon - considering he was busy shuffling from one audition to the other while other kids his age were taking the CSAT. But Wonwoo is about to get his fucking _doctorate,_ has dedicated his entire adult life in the pursuit of intellectualism, is _genuinely_ the smartest and most well-read individual Mingyu will ever have the privilege to meet. They’re poles apart, aeons away from each other’s galaxies, forever doomed to just be suspended like this - hovering on the precipice of something substantial, but never seeing it reach fruition. Opposites only attract in romance novels and sappy kdramas and when the earth’s gravitational forces draw two magnets together. 

Wonwoo and Mingyu? _They’re_ not inhabitants of a romance novel or drama, neither are they magnets.

Mingyu has made his peace with it, really. After all, there was never any possibility to begin with, not even the slightest _inkling_ of a possibility - Wonwoo made that abundantly clear the other night at the back-alley, when instead of closing the distance and kissing Mingyu senseless, Wonwoo had merely asked whether or not he was a cat person. 

And Mingyu is okay with it, he _is,_ he truly and honestly _is._ They’ll always be just roommates, first and foremost, no matter how often Wonwoo lets Mingyu’s fingers travel across his bare skin, and as long as Mingyu can continue to carve a niche in Wonwoo’s life in some capacity or other, he’s okay with it. He’s _okay_ with being doomed to an eternity of hovering on the precipice of something substantial but never seeing it reach fruition.

Mingyu checks the time. _One pm._ Has Wonwoo been called in yet? Is he currently in a huge, intimidating University hall, being stared down by an equally intimidating roster of super accomplished graduate professors? Is he currently in the middle of delivering the presentation that he’s worked so tirelessly for? Is he currently talking about the underlying nuances and connotations of the dissertation that he’s tried to explain to Mingyu in layman’s terms a million times, but Mingyu has still managed to grasp barely a tiny percentage of? 

Mingyu really _shouldn’t,_ he shouldn’t be so wound up, spending every waking minute consumed with concern for Wonwoo, wondering what Wonwoo is up to, hoping that Wonwoo isn’t too nervous, wishing that he could be physically there to touch Wonwoo, to comfort Wonwoo. It’s stupidly, incorrigibly, lovesick and pathetic but god, can Mingyu ever be anything _but?_ Ever since the day Wonwoo had smiled at him from across that fateful convenience store, soft and indulgent despite Mingyu having made him sprint halfway across town in pouring rain, despite Mingyu launching into another one of his embarrassingly meandering diatribe about the merits of eating home-cooked food and regular physical exercise, Mingyu had been capable of little else but pathetic lovesickness.

It’s such an essential component of who he is now, he’ll have to start putting it on his official résumé: _Kim Mingyu, 24, professional model, pathetically lovesick about his cute roommate._

The director calls his name again, signalling the end of his brief lunch break, and Mingyu sighs, cursing at himself for once again getting distracted thinking about Wonwoo when he should be fucking _focusing on work._ He sucks in a deep, exaggerated breath, hoping the excess oxygen filling his lungs will drown out all mental images of Wonwoo in the suit Mingyu ironed for him first thing in the morning and furtively left in his bedroom, will calm his vicarious worry about whether or not Wonwoo’s dissertation defence is going well. _Get it together, Kim Mingyu,_ he mutters while he smoothes the creases in the expensive silk shirt he’s modelling, the makeup noonas scuttling over to him to retouch his makeup.

But then, something utterly unexpected happens. Right when he’s squarely in the midst of stamping out all thoughts of a certain curly-haired soft-eyed cat-loving roommate and is diverting his attention to the makeup noonas, is listening to them passionately review the latest range of _Innisfree_ sheet masks while they contour his cheekbones - his phone dings in his pocket.

His hammering heart immediately screeches to a halt, threatening to spill it’s contents everywhere - all its pent-up longing, the unhindered extent of his eagerness, the cacophony of emotions that’s been interred within each vessel, each pump of blood. 

Lovesick, and extremely, _extremely_ pathetic.

He tries not to let any of that lovesickness show on his face while he slowly, inconspicuously unlocks his phone, tapping over to that previously unanswered, unacknowledged, kkt chat that has been the subject of all his distress since the very beginning of this day. But this time, it’s no longer unanswered and unacknowledged, this time, that glaring green tick is no longer taunting him mercilessly.

This time, Mingyu’s luck is perhaps not so dreadful.

**from: cute roommate hyung <3**

Hey, sorry for the late reply. I just got done with my defence, I think I'll scrape through. Thanks for the bibimbap, Mingyu-yah, it was delicious as always.

**from: cute roommate hyung <3**

Ps- Can’t wait to try the expensive wine and bulgogi. I'll be waiting for you, Gyu.

And.

From his _stupidly_ wide grin (that is all too prominent when reflected through the makeup mirror), from the knowing look the noonas share behind him, Mingyu guesses that he hasn’t _at all_ succeeded in not letting any of it show on his face.

He’s as obvious as his endlessly hammering heart.

\---

As he stands on the doorstep of his apartment at six thirty pm sharp, Mingyu recognises that there’s a vague possibility he _might_ have gone a little bit overboard.

In his left hand is currently a bag containing not only the local liquor store’s most expensive bottle of merlot, but also their most authentically sourced heomosu pine forest soju - both enough to put a sizable dent in his paycheck. But tonight is Wonwoo’s night, and Mingyu has no plans to hold back, dents in paychecks be damned. 

After his liquor run, he’d spent at least an hour at the nearest convenience store, piling his cart with an eclectic assortment of ingredients, mentally planning out an elaborate menu featuring every single dish Wonwoo has even _remotely_ shown interest in over the past ten months of them living together. But this tableau couldn’t have been complete without making a detour to the flower stand, without carefully selecting a bouquet of the most vivid, most spectacular selection of orchids he could find.

The plan was relatively simple. He would present Wonwoo with the flowers as soon as he entered (preferably accompanied by another one of their toe-curling, irrationally lingering hugs), he would cook dinner for Wonwoo (the finest, most exquisite dinner he has ever cooked), they would drink the wine (and/or soju) together, and then, they would spend the rest of the evening chattering about everything and nothing. Mingyu would gently cajole out of Wonwoo every minuscule detail of his dissertation defence, and would listen in rapt awe, chiming in occasionally with his own observations and appropriate nods and squeals of approval. They would watch an episode of their favourite drama together, snugly ensconced on the couch, during which Mingyu would not-so-subtly plant his entire face into the slope of Wonwoo’s neck and find flimsy excuses to tangle his hands into the sleepsoft fabric of Wonwoo’s sweatshirt. And then, when they would be a little bit tipsy from all the soju and the wine and a little bit lost in the late-night nebulousness of the moment, Mingyu will drag Wonwoo downstairs again, to the very same back-alley, and finally show him the gift he's been _aching_ to give Wonwoo for over a month now. 

Mingyu’s single-minded goal for tonight is to make Wonwoo unconditionally happy, is to see that breathtaking nose-scrunch once again shine through the barricades of his usually-reserved expression, is to hear the harmonious symphony of his chuckles, of his delicate hands reaching up to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose. All of the things that make Mingyu’s hammering heart clench and clatter and threaten to implode under the weight of his _care._

But, when he finally sucks in a nervous breath and rings the doorbell - opting not to use his key so he can catch Wonwoo by surprise - all of it, all his best-laid plans and silly daydreams and countless unrealistic fantasies, come crashing down in an instant.

Two things happen simultaneously:

Mingyu’s phone dings again, and before he can properly even unlock it, the words _“sorry”_ and _“you don’t have to cook dinner tonight”_ loom disastrously from the atop his notification bar.

The door to his apartment opens with an abrupt click, and someone who is _decidedly_ not Wonwoo, someone who seems like he stepped out of a Vogue catalogue himself - all blonde and attractive and viciously daunting eyes - stands on the other end.

“Ah, you must be the infamous roommate,” says tall, blonde, and dauntingly gorgeous, “You're exactly how Wonu described."

The words are uttered with a curious arch of eyebrow, with a sickly-sweet smugness, and Mingyu feels like poisoned lead is trickling into the walls of his stomach, threatening to corrode every inch of it, his heart now hammering for completely different reasons.

 _How did Wonwoo describe me,_ he wants to ask, even in the midst of the mixture of confusion and pure unadulterated dread that is sinking into his bones. _What did Wonwoo say about me._

But he doesn't. For once, he doesn't fall into _that_ particular trajectory of pathetic lovesickness and instead, settles for merely gawking doe-eyed at this stranger. This inhumanly beautiful stranger, who is currently in _Mingyu's_ house - in _Mingyu and Wonwoo's_ house - looking, for all intents and purposes, far too comfortable here _._

 _Mingyu's, and Wonwoo's._ This place is _Mingyu's, and Wonwoo's_. Only theirs to make a home in, only theirs to seek comfort in.

"Wh-who are you?" Is the only thing Mingyu can stammer out, cringing internally at how unsure it comes off as.

The blonde stranger's lips twitch into an impish smirk, and there's a sudden, mysterious gleam in the depths of his daunting eyes - like he's in on a joke Mingyu will never be able to grasp. 

The poison lead in Mingyu's stomach twists and oozes uncomfortably, threatening to scald him from within, making him mildly nauseous.

"Wonuuu-yaah~" is what the ultimately blonde stranger calls out instead of responding to Mingyu directly - uttering the name with an informality that makes Mingyu's stomach twist and convulse even further. _How can someone else lay claim to Wonwoo's name like that? How can-_

But before Mingyu can even complete that train of thought, the stranger has turned around, disappearing without preamble into the hallway that leads up to the living room. Mingyu has no choice but to blindly follow him, uneasiness clouding his toes, making him feel alien and unwanted in his _own damn home._

"I can't believe you didn't tell your roommate about _me,_ my dearest Wonu-yah _!"_ the stranger singsongs, and Mingyu only now notices that he's wearing _Mingyu's_ house-slippers - the very same ones with the tiny brown rilakkumas printed all over, extra soft and extra fluffy. "Do I mean so little to you?"

"Don't be dramatic, Jeonghannie hyung," comes a quiet, chastising baritone, all too familiar in its cadences, all too devastating in its combined effect. It's the voice that has been the subject of countless forbidden fantasies, countless unrealistic scenarios cooked up in his head involving whispered sweet nothings and heated kisses.

And.

With a ragged intake of breath, Mingyu finally gathers the courage to confront the inevitable. 

He looks up, and there Wonwoo is, perched on the very living room couch where Mingyu had imagined spending the evening curled up against Wonwoo neck, giggling at their favourite drama. Except - right now, Wonwoo is curled up on that couch with someone else entirely, is flanked on both sides by not just one gorgeous blonde stranger, but also another equally gorgeous (though a lot less blonde) stranger, all three of them poised eerily close. 

In front of the couch is the foldable wooden table that Wonwoo only whips out on rare occasions - only when he's watching an important documentary or an e-sports broadcast and needs an accompanying supply of soju to go along with it. Except this, too, is some sort of rare occasion - Wonwoo actually _having people over,_ the table being crowded with three pairs of half-empty glasses, with at least five different bottles of soju and plates of fried chicken to go along with it. 

And. Wonwoo is smiling, breathtaking nose-scrunch embossed on the silken-smooth ladder of his skin, his feline-shaped eyes animated with warmth. But contrary to all of Mingyu's plans tonight, it's not _him_ who is making Wonwoo smile like that, all bright and uninhibited, cheeks flushed underneath the combined effect of alcohol and residual laughter. It all comes down to that gorgeous blonde stranger in question - _Jeonghan hyung, apparently_ \- the very same stranger who's currently sprawled halfway across Wonwoo's lap, arm thrown casually around Wonwoo's shoulder .

"Ah, Mingyu-yah, you're home," Wonwoo greets him, his smile growing brighter by a smidgen (Mingyu selfishly hopes it's because of _him,_ even though it's probably not), "This is Seungcheol hyung and Jeonghan hyung, my University friends! They too had their dissertation defence today, so they wanted to come over and celebrate afterwards."

There's the briefest of pauses then, Wonwoo fidgeting in his seat almost imperceptibly - Mingyu would have missed it if he wasn’t so intimately well-versed with every single one of Wonwoo’s tiny movements, if he wasn’t so infuriatingly attuned to every single nuance of Wonwoo’s body language. "Hope that's okay with you, Mingyu-yah?"

Mingyu can only blink in response, rooted to the spot, the lead in his stomach swelling, swelling, swelling, until it nearly engulfs Mingyu’s entire being, until it nearly erodes every inch of him.

His mind screams a steady refrain of _no, no, no. Can't you see that tonight was supposed to be about just the two of us? Don't you want to celebrate with_ **_me?_ **

But Wonwoo remains utterly oblivious to Mingyu's despondent internal monologue, is still staring back at him with that animated smile which was put there by _someone else_ , with that breathtaking nose scrunch that, despite everything, still makes Mingyu’s heart hammer maddeningly. 

And Mingyu - god, he's stupid, he's so, _so stupid. Pathetic, lovesick_ and _stupid._

"O-ofcourse," Mingyu manages to bite out, bowing to both Seungcheol and Jeonghan with as much politeness as he could muster despite his churning stomach, "I-it's nice to meet you, Seungcheol-sshi, Jeonghan-ssh.,"

Seungcheol attempts to bow in return from the couch itself, but Jeonghan only continues to smirk and nothing else, using this opportunity to sidle even closer to Wonwoo.

If this was anything out of the ordinary, Wonwoo definitely doesn't show it. In fact, he seems uncharacteristically unfazed about Jeonghan's proximity, which is just terribly _unfair,_ if you ask Mingyu _._ It took months and months of living together, of sharing space, time, and candidness, until Wonwoo eased up to Mingyu's touches, until Wonwoo actively _allowed_ Mingyu's touches. 

But now, after seeing him so comfortable being touched by _other people,_ Mingyu realises that maybe he was never special, maybe the depth of meaning he kept attaching to their touches was always thoroughly unreciprocated, and will forever continue to be.

He's so stupid, he's so so _stupid._

"No, but despite King Sejeong’s contribution to developing a completely new language system, you can’t deny the fact that _hanja_ continued to have significant influence in Korean syntax even up till the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries," Seungcheol picks up the conversation from where it had left off before Mingyu had walked in, as if Mingyu's presence truly doesn't make any difference, doesn’t add any insight or value to this gathering. 

Wonwoo immediately turns his attention to Seungcheol too, taking a sip of soju and listening intently to every single word, nodding or crinkling his eyebrows at the appropriate moments because _of course,_ this is the type of conversation that genuinely engages him, not Mingyu’s silly excited anecdotes about which 90s fashion trends are making a comeback. 

"You're right," Wonwoo chimes in, in his Sage and Important Academic tone of voice, "But at the same time, you cannot dismiss how King Sejeong’s invention of the _hangul_ script truly democratised the use of the written language in the Joseon era, breaking past class and gender barriers."

"There you go again, with your sociolinguistic point of view to everything!" Seungcheol protests good-naturedly, clapping Wonwoo on the back, "You _do_ know that every bit of language analysis doesn’t have to be about class and gender?"

"Yes, Wonu-yah," Jeonghan singsongs again, "Sometimes, it’s just about the syntax.”

"No, you don’t get it!" Wonwoo cuts in, indignant and passionate in a way Mingyu has rarely seen him about anything else, and definitely not during any of the conversations Mingyu has with him, “Class and gender analysis _is_ important! Socio-cultural factors are always influencing the growth and proliferation of language, even when you think it isn’t-”

And, well.

It goes on and on and on.

Wonwoo and Seungcheol and Jeonghan keep spitballing academic discourse after academic discourse, launching into heated academic arguments with complicated jargon and concepts that is so far beyond Mingyu’s understanding that all he can do is stand there blinking like a fool, his grip on the bouquet of flowers loosening by the second.

If Mingyu hadn’t already been convinced of how diametrically opposite his and Wonwoo’s worlds are, now there’s no longer any room for doubt. It’s _tangible,_ how utterly inadequate Mingyu is in comparison to the people Wonwoo spends time with outside of this apartment, how utterly incapable Mingyu is of following even a single thing Wonwoo is currently advocating for with all his will and enthusiasm.

Wonwoo is getting his fucking _doctorate,_ has dedicated his entire adult life in the pursuit of intellectualism, and Mingyu is a high school dropout who never went to college, Mingyu probably couldn’t even _spell_ intellectualism correctly on his first try. He knew, he _knew_ they were poles apart, aeons away from being compatible, he knew this has always been inevitable at some point or the other, whether he’d denied it or not. He should have known that someone like Jeonghan or Seungcheol would come along someday - with their superior academic prowess and their incomparable handsomeness - and Wonwoo would pick them over Mingyu without a moment’s hesitation, Wonwoo would smile because of them, would debate passionately with them, leaving Mingyu standing dumbfounded in the middle of the living room.

And despite it all, despite knowing that this could only end in heartbreak and despair, Mingyu has kept harbouring his lovesick, pathetic, entirely delusional fantasies. God, what did he expect? That just by cooking Wonwoo an elaborate meal consisting of all his favourite dishes, Mingyu would magically woo him? That by taking care of Wonwoo in subtle and inconspicuous ways, by feeding his cats for him, by fastening his tie for him every morning, Wonwoo would magically begin seeing Mingyu as more than just a roommate? That a singular _“i’ll be waiting for you, gyu”_ meant more than what’s on the surface, that it held a promise, an open invitation to finally stop hovering on the precipice of something substantial and take the leap?

What would have this one single evening achieved anyway? Would the heomusu pine forest soju have helped Mingyu pluck up the courage to finally confess to Wonwoo? Would it have only made way for more heartbreak, with a pitying glance from Wonwoo’s end, a reassuring pat to say, _“Ah, I like you Mingyu-yah, but not like that.”_

After all, Mingyu has always been too much and not enough at the same time - too much, in how he wears his heart painfully on his sleeve; not enough, because he can never do anything by half-measures. His love cascades out of him in violent waves, crashing everywhere, on every shore, and no one has ever expressed the willingness to want to bask in it.

Why did he ever think that Wonwoo would?

As Jeonghan wordlessly reaches over to fill Wonwoo’s glass with more soju, smirk still intact; as Wonwoo continues to be entirely immersed in his conversation with Seungcheol, saying something about _morphology_ and _dialectics_ that once again goes leagues over Mingyu’s head; Mingyu finally lets the bouquet fall away from his hands entirely, watching it scatter sloppily on the hardwood floor.

His shoulders hunch in retreat and renunciation, and he’s pathetic, he’s _so_ pathetic, but he’s left with no other choice. 

The only option that will not break him into a million pieces is to retreat.

“I, um,” he says, and the conversation immediately stops, three sets of eyes curiously turning to him as if they had completely forgotten Mingyu was still in the room, “I’m suddenly feeling a little unwell, so I’m just going to, uh, go to my room. You guys have fun.”

In a flash, Wonwoo’s eyes soften, raking through him from head to toe, betraying a concern that only feels like salt being rubbed into Mingyu’s wounds, knife being twisted straight into his hammering heart, “Are you okay, Mingyu-yah? What’s wrong? Should I take you to the doctor?”

“N-no, hyung, it’s okay,” Mingyu hates that he’s stammering again, hates that his pronounced lisp is a dead giveaway, that the tears crowding the edge of his eyelids are a dead giveaway, “I’ll be fine, I just need to sleep it off.”

It takes a tremendous amount of restraint not to meet Wonwoo’s concerned eyes one last time, not to reassure him that Mingyu _really is_ okay and Wonwoo shouldn’t worry, but somehow, he manages it. 

He stifles a weak sob, dumps the bags of groceries and alcohol on the kitchen table, and then finally rushes into his room - trying to do it with as much grace as possible, though he’s sure he doesn’t quite succeed.

It’s only when he’s finally inside, heaving against the back of his shut door, letting the tears finally spill over and ruin all the meticulous makeup he’d applied on the cab ride home, that he realises:

The flowers he bought for Wonwoo are still lying scattered on the living room floor, the vivid oranges and yellows abandoned against dull brown hardwood. He’s forgotten to pick them up.

And perhaps this, too, is a metaphor for every crushed daydream, for every heartbreak he miserably failed to avoid.

Pathetic. Mingyu is lovesick, and utterly pathetic.

\---

“You’re an idiot, Jeon Wonwoo,” Jeonghan says as soon as the door to Mingyu's room shuts with a thud, “The biggest, most annoyingly oblivious idiot.”

“Huh?” Wonwoo is still too distracted worrying about Mingyu to pay attention to what Jeonghan is saying, uneasiness swirling in his gut. 

Was it just him, or did Mingyu seem a little...off? Wonwoo’s sure he imagined the flecks of red around Mingyu’s eyes, the moisture swimming in their depths - Mingyu can’t possibly be _crying,_ could he? _No,_ that can’t be right. Mingyu is all golden-hued mirth and affection, Mingyu is all crooked-canined grins and dizzying high-pitched giggles. In all the time Wonwoo has known him, he's never seen Mingyu on the verge of actual, despairing tears, has never seen Mingyu look as forlorn and defeated like he had just a few minutes ago, even while insisting that _he'll be fine._

Wonwoo is starting to suspect that Mingyu will, in fact, _not_ be fine. That he might just be the _opposite_ of fine at this exact moment, more in the territory of needing reassurance rather than doing any reassuring.

God, was Mingyu genuinely ill? He didn’t seem like it when he came home, but Mingyu is also notoriously good at hiding his own discomfort to not inconvenience others - is he doing that now, too? Did he truly need a doctor, despite insisting against it? 

Or, did something happen to him at work? Should he call Seungkwan and find out-?

“Are you listening to me, Jeon Wonwoo!” Wonwoo is snapped out of his internal monologue by a hand grabbing his collar, by a suddenly extremely frustrated-looking Yoon Jeonghan physically shaking him back and forth, “I’m saying that you’re _a fucking idiot.”_

“Wh-what,” Wonwoo’s glasses slide down his nose, his head spinning a little at being manhandled so cruelly by his best friend, but his Mingyu-addled brain only keeps thinking of Mingyu, only keeps caring about Mingyu’s wellbeing, "Hyuung stop!! What did I even _do!!_ Why are you so mad!! _"_

"You idiot!" Jeonghan reiterates, eyes narrowed, grasp on Wonwoo’s collar unyielding, "Why didn't you tell us that tonight was your _date night_ with Mingyu!! Cheolie and I wouldn't've shown up then!!"

_Date night?_

"Date night?" Wonwoo nearly spits out the residual soju on his tongue, his ears reddening once again, "Wh-what do you mean, date night?? Don’t be silly, hyung."

"Wonu-yah," Seungcheol pats his shoulder sympathetically - a far gentler approach than what Yoon Jeonghan is currently putting him through - and Wonwoo is eternally grateful that he has at least one friend who is remotely _normal,_ "He brought you flowers, Wonu-yah. He _dressed up_ for you too - I mean, you don’t just show up at your own home wearing a low-cut sweater and nothing underneath, even if you’re a hot supermodel _._ And, from the bags he just left on the kitchen table, it's clear he was planning to cook you a romantic meal too."

Every single coherent thought on his (Mingyu-addled) brain comes crumbling down, disintegrating and scattering like Mingyu’s flowers had done earlier. He’s nothing but an empty bundle of synapses, nothing but a recurring insistence that _No, this can’t be possible. Seungcheol can’t be right._

 _This isn’t out of the ordinary,_ he wants to say. Mingyu has a penchant for wearing sweaters with nothing underneath (“it’s just comfier this way, hyung!”), is no stranger to looking casually devastating even when he’s home, completely bare-faced, doing something completely unremarkable and innocuous.

Mingyu is also no stranger to cooking elaborate meals for Wonwoo - in fact, cooking is how Mingyu communicates, is how Mingyu pours out all the earnestness that his massive, precious, beautiful heart is always overflowing with. That’s the exact reason why Wonwoo had cooked for Mingyu too the night he’d unintentionally ended up hurting Mingyu. He’d known this was the only way Mingyu would _understand,_ the only way the depth of Wonwoo’s gratitude could be conveyed.

And the flowers? Mingyu loves flowers, loves bringing home flowers he found abandoned on the sidewalk, loves arranging them in little porcelain mugs on their living room windowsill alongside his beloved bougainvilleas (“I want the flowers to know they’re loved too, hyung! That’s why I get them home!")

Sure, Mingyu hasn’t ever brought home an entire _bouquet_ before, especially not one that seems to be clearly put together by a florist - embellished with a pretty ribbon, stems wrapped in exquisite silk - but it’s not completely uncharacteristic of Mingyu.

Isn’t it?

_Isn’t it?_

But Seungcheol’s words continue to ring in Wonwoo’s still-reddened ears, Seungcheol’s hand still sympathetically patting his shoulder like he _knows_ Wonwoo needs the added sympathy. Wonwoo finds he cannot take his eyes off the scattered flowers on the floor, on the haphazard way they have spilled out from their ribbon, his mind replaying the sight of Mingyu holding them so softly in his incredibly small, incredibly nimble hands. The very same hands Wonwoo had been so fascinated by on the very first day they met.

 _Orchids._ They're _orchids._ Wonwoo’s favourite flower. He probably mentioned it briefly in passing only once, and he can’t…

He can't believe Mingyu remembered.

From atop the kitchen table, Wonwoo can also vaguely make out the outline of a bottle of heomusu pine forest soju. Another one of Wonwoo’s favourite things, that he’s complained about not being able to afford only rarely, only amid the darkness of his three-am honey-lemon-tea fuelled disillusioned rants about dissertation-writing.

He can’t believe Mingyu remembered this, too.

"But," Wonwoo squeaks out, but he doesn’t know if it’s meant to convince Seungcheol and Jeonghan or if it’s meant to convince himself, "M-Mingyu said he got his paycheck.That's why he wanted to treat me to dinner."

"Idiot," Jeonghan groans, this time more resigned than actively furious, dropping his hands from Wonwoo’s collar at last, "You deserve to be alone and single for the rest of your life.”

Seungcheol chuckles softly, once again taking pity on Wonwoo’s predicament and patting him on the back. “Ah, Wonu-yah, what Hannie means is, well - we think you should go check on Mingyu, and fix what you screwed up.”

“I-” Wonwoo wants to protest, wants to back away like the terrible coward and idiot (yes, _okay,_ maybe Yoon Jeonghan is right) he is, but before he can make that decision, Jeonghan makes it for him.

He physically pushes Wonwoo off the couch, ignoring the resounding “ _what the fuck”_ Wonwoo lets out in surprise, and with another well-aimed kick to the back of Wonwoo’s shins, sends him tumbling right infront of Mingyu’s door.

“I have the worst friends in the entire world.” Wonwoo mutters, wincing in pain.

“You’ll thank us later, Jeon Wonwoo!” Jeonghan singsongs from behind him, his earlier frustration now replaced with that annoyingly smug smirk that he only unleashes when he’s taking particular pleasure in tormenting Wonwoo, “Now go get your shit together!”

And-

As Wonwoo gets back on his feet, straightening his now-disheveled collar and clearing his throat, there’s a minute - small, fleeting, tentative - when he lets himself believe Seungcheol. When he lets himself think, _maybe._

_Maybe this is his to claim, his to fix._

“Hey, Mingyu-yah,” Wonwoo knocks, heart in his throat, pounding and seizing several different ways, “You okay in there?”

The only response forthcoming is the distinct sound of a choked sob, of loud, erratic breathing. 

“Mingyu? Mingyu-yah are you really crying?” It comes out far more panicked than he originally intends, far too vulnerable and bleak, his knuckles persistently bashing against the wood of Mingyu’s door.

There’s another vehement sob from the other end of the door, and it's like shards of razor-sharp glass being lodged into Wonwoo's chest, slicing past him vessel by vessel. God, he's never felt like this, has never felt such a visceral, all-consuming need to erase someone else's suffering -

But it's always been this way with Mingyu, hasn't it? Whenever Mingyu is anything less than happy, content, carefree, whenever Mingyu is uncertain, or _hurting,_ or bordering despair, _Wonwoo_ feels like he's physically bearing the wound, _Wonwoo_ feels like he's on the brink of ruin.

“Mingyu, _please,_ open the door, tell me what’s wrong." His knocking gets more insistent, his breathing more rattled, "I- I’m sorry if I’ve upset you, I didn’t mean to-”

But he doesn't get to finish that sentence, because in the very next second, all his knocking has reached its conclusion. The door is abruptly thrown open - so fast that Wonwoo almost recoils from it - to reveal a Mingyu who is all swollen eyes and tear-tracked cheeks, chest heaving in ragged exhales, nail paint chipped once again from him anxiously clawing at it. 

Wonwoo has never seen Mingyu like this - so despondent and untethered, like the roots being ripped off an oak tree, like high tide barrelling onto boulders and leaving behind only muddied wreckage. His mascara is smudged from the tears, his lips chapped like salt fields in drought - and even now, even like this, he is still so stunning, he still makes Wonwoo's breath catch in his throat, his stomach still swarming with butterflies. Even now, even like this, the only thing Wonwoo wants to do is _hold him,_ to kiss away every inch of despair and misery from Mingyu's face, to whisper, _hey, I’m here, I’m going to make everything right._

“Why are _you_ saying sorry?” Mingyu splutters, the words plowing into each other like they always do when he’s in a rush to get them out, “It’s not your fault, none of it is your fault. It’s me, I’m the one who’s stupid.”

Wonwoo frowns, equal parts confused and insistent that _no, Mingyu isn’t stupid, he is anything but stupid._

“Mingyu-”

But it’s as if Mingyu is determined to not let Wonwoo get in a word edgewise - which is technically not an uncommon occurrence, but is now tinged with a sense of urgency that makes Wonwoo’s spine shudder, that makes Wonwoo’s toes numb. Mingyu pulls Wonwoo’s wrist into a vice-grip and all-but hauls him inside the room, shutting the door behind them like he’s terrified of being overheard, like he’s terrified of being _known_ beyond this tiny, intimate, shared liminal space that only the two of them occupy. Their singular orbit.

“I _am_ . I _am_ the one who’s stupid, okay?” Mingyu says again, chestnut-brown eyes still brimming with residual tears, still piercing into Wonwoo’s very soul (another occurence that isn't uncommon), “I’m the one who’s stupid and selfish for hoping for something more, hyung. For finding excuses to be close to you, for wanting to spend time with you and take care of you, for wanting to impress you and for wanting you to _like_ me."

 _But I do like you,_ the revelation comes to Wonwoo plain as day, ripples in a serene river, both fundamental and profound. There’s a part of Wonwoo that is wholly suspended in disbelief - that is repeating, again and again: _this can’t be right._ Someone like Mingyu _can’t possibly_ want someone like Wonwoo - stuffy and boring and introverted, a mere dull spark compared to Mingyu’s blazing-gold wildfire. 

But there’s another, more dominant, part of him that sees his own turmoil reflected in Mingyu’s chestnut-brown eyes, sees the same uncertainty, the same butterflies that have permanently taken up residence in Wonwoo’s stomach ever since that very first day Mingyu stumbled into their apartment in those damned strawberry-patterned socks. 

_(Their_ apartment. _Theirs._

This word now comes easily to Wonwoo too, effortless against his tongue, plain as day, ripples in a serene river. He no longer dithers around it.)

In all his self-pity, in all his haste to deny his growing, unavoidable feelings for Mingyu for fear of rejection, for fear of being the _wrong person_ for Mingyu, for fear of letting someone like Mingyu bulldoze past all the walls he had meticulously built around his heart, steal every ounce of silence he once held sacred - Wonwoo has forgotten to notice something essential. 

Wonwoo has forgotten to notice that Mingyu’s world might have been upended too, Mingyu’s paradigms might have shifted too.

 _“_ I-” Mingyu continues to ramble, gesticulating and getting more winded by the second, totally oblivious to any and all revelations Wonwoo is currently having, “When I first moved in, I - Minghao had told me about you know? He’d said, _Jeon Wonwoo is a genius in his field, but he also doesn’t talk much at all,_ and I was like, fine, okay, I’ll deal with that. All I need is a place to stay, that’s all - I’ll find a way to get along with him. But then I _met you_ and you were - _god_ , you were nothing like I thought you would be, hyung. You were the most handsome boy I’d ever seen, with your stupid curly hair and cute nerdy glasses that always keep slipping down your nose and your ridiculous little _nose-scrunch_ everytime you smile too big. You were so kind and indulgent, always helping me, always being there for me when I needed it, always listening to me even when I talked too much, even when I was bothering you or distracting you from your work-"

Wonwoo is rooted to the spot, unable to move, unable to _breathe._ Mingyu’s hand is persistent on his wrist, and Wonwoo’s blood is roaring underneath it, something akin to hope once again flooding him from head to toe. But this hope is different, this hope feels-

It feels freeing, buoyant, like in this moment, there’s nothing but him and Mingyu, nothing but the home they’ve built together.

This humble two-bedroom apartment, nestled in the heartlanes of Gasan-dong, that comes alive only under Mingyu’s sunlit laughter, only with the sound of Mingyu’s early-morning humming, only with the steady thump of Mingyu’s large, uncoordinated footsteps against hardwood floors - It’s _theirs,_ it’s their home.

 _Mingyu’s,_ and _Wonwoo’s._

And by some unseen twist of fate, Mingyu feels the same way too. 

"Mingyu, you never-"

 _Mingyu, you never distracted me,_ Wonwoo wants to say. _You always made me better, you always made me work harder, you’re the reason I keep going. You were kind to me too, you were always there for me too._

But of course, Mingyu’s rambling is as unceasing as ever, is leaps and bounds ahead of any feeble interjections Wonwoo can make right now. 

It’s that familiar brand of Mingyu rambling that Wonwoo has always known how to recognise:

_The words tumbling out at lightning speed, in rough inflections, truncated syllables colliding into each other, merging all into a single barely-coherent entity._

Mingyu, in such a desperate rush to get all of it off his chest, that no impenetrable force of the universe, no fundamental law of gravity, can deter him right now. 

He wants to say _everything,_ and Wonwoo, as always, is his loyal, captive audience. Wonwoo, as always, is more than willing to listen.

"You...you _saw_ me, Wonwoo hyung," Mingyu’s voice gets a touch quieter now, more poignant, his hand loosening over Wonwoo’s wrist, "The real me, not just the person I have to be in front of cameras - and I thought, _maybe if I could try my best, maybe if I could show him that I can be good for him too, he might see me as more than just a roommate._ But god, of course, you don’t. Of course you don’t like me like that, hyung, of course your type is gorgeous blonde Yoon Jeonghan who can actually _keep up_ with your intelligence, not a fucking high school dropout like me."

Wait, Jeonghan??? _Jeonghan?_

Is that why Mingyu had gotten so upset earlier? Because he assumed Wonwoo and Jeonghan were-?

Oh no, _no._

Wonwoo will _not_ allow Mingyu to think this, never in his entire miserable lifetime.

"Mingyu-" Wonwoo tries to make his interjection sound firmer, more resolute, but Mingyu is - well Mingyu. An unstoppable force of nature.

"But I’ll get over you, hyung, I promise,” Mingyu’s deluge of lisp-ridden rambling is endless, though now seeming more wounded than frantic, “I don’t ever want to make you feel uncomfortable or obligated to put up with me, hyung, so if you’re weirded out by me right now and need me to move out then just tell me and I will-”

 _“Mingyu,”_ Wonwoo all but yells, literally grabbing Mingyu by the shoulders and pulling him flush against his chest to finally, _finally_ get him to stop spiralling, to get _him_ to listen.

Mingyu’s chestnut-brown eyes are blown and stricken, his lips parted, and for once, Wonwoo allows himself to read Mingyu like the open book he has always been, allows himself to memorise the longing written in the arch of Mingyu’s eyebrows, the unmistakable awe in his soft, staggered exhales.

For once, Wonwoo doesn’t quash the _want_ that has consistently coursed through his veins throughout these past ten months. For once, Wonwoo doesn’t hold himself back.

“Mingyu,” Wonwoo says again, this time impossibly tender, left hand finding purchase in the nape of Mingyu’s neck, right hand firmly situated in the small of Mingyu’s back, “I’m going to kiss you now.”

Mingyu lets out an audible gasp, his heartbeat so loud Wonwoo can feel it past the fabric of the sinful, low-cut sweater Mingyu is wearing tonight ( _for him,_ Wonwoo suddenly registers, _Mingyu dressed up just for him_ ). “You...you?? Wh-what about Jeonghan-sshi?”

“Yoon Jeonghan isn’t the one I’m in love with,” Wonwoo says, his lips hovering over the edge of Mingyu’s, their noses colliding, breaths melding into one, “Actually, my type is six foot tall boys who make the best jajangmyun, who take care of my cats even when they’re a dog person, who sing to succulents and cry at confession scenes of romantic dramas and wear their big, beautiful heart on their sleeve.”

“W-wait, you-” Mingyu’s mouth falls open even further, his heart beating even louder against Wonwoo’s vibrating chest, “Y-you… _me?_ You’re in love with... _me?_ But-”

And this time, Wonwoo decides to take things in his own hands. This time, he doesn’t let Mingyu circle into the abyss of yet another self-deprecating diatribe where all he does is disparage himself - because nothing could be farther than the truth. Mingyu is good, and kind, and unquestionably _stunning_ both inside and out, and Wonwoo will not have him thinking otherwise, even if his life depends on it.

He plunges in headfirst, capturing Mingyu’s parted lips into a searing kiss, hand travelling from the nape of Mingyu’s neck to tug at Mingyu’s impossibly soft hair, to pluck wild, discombobulated moans from the depths of Mingyu’s chest. He tastes the seductive strawberry of Mingyu’s lipgloss, tongue slipping past the palisades of Mingyu’s teeth, finding a haven deep within Mingyu, etching out a new horizon, an entirely new paradigm of their shared existence.

It’s an endless promise, it’s a fluttering release. It’s every forbidden fantasy reaching fruition, every precipice conquered, every hint of something substantial transformed into the _real,_ the tangible. Infinitely more heady, infinitely more intoxicating.

Mingyu makes a delirious noise at the back of his throat, and Wonwoo’s hands tremble with the intensity of his _want,_ with the volume of his desire, with how scrupulously he wants to pillage every fingerbreadth of Mingyu with his hands and mouth, not stopping until he’s explored every nook and cranny, every uncharted terrain.

Except - from the unhinged way Mingyu is kissing him back, granting Wonwoo eager, unrestrained access to the domains of his mouth - Wonwoo now _can._ Wonwoo can now delineate the entire extent of his _want,_ can finally _hold_ Mingyu without doubt or hesitation, can finally let the butterflies in his stomach run rampant, exploding everywhere.

 _“Oh,”_ Mingyu breathes into the tip of Wonwoo’s nose when they come up for air, bodies still thoroughly intertwined, “I never thought-”

“I love you Mingyu,” Wonwoo sputters out, perhaps far too quick, perhaps far too keen and honest, but he can’t keep it locked inside him anymore. It begs being articulated out loud, it begs being whispered between the walls of this shared liminal space that has always been theirs to build a home in, _together,_ “I have loved you forever, from the minute I saw you, from the minute you slowly began changing my whole life. You didn’t ever have to _try_ to make me like you because I’ve always been yours, Mingyu-yah, from day one. I’ve always seen you, the real you, and the real you is astoundingly beautiful.”

“Hyung,” Mingyu’s eyes brim with the shadow of tears once again, but Wonwoo suspects that these aren’t despondent, uncertain tears, that these are far from it, “You can’t just say things like that.”

“But I want to,” Wonwoo insists, kissing the patch of skin atop Mingyu’s upper lip (because he _can,_ he now _can_ ), “I want to tell you how amazing I think you are, how beautiful I think you are. And god, please don’t ever think you’re not intelligent because you didn’t graduate high school, because that never matters, okay? That’s _never_ mattered to me. You’ve been out there making a living all on your own since you were _seventeen,_ Mingyu - you are genuinely the most brilliant, accomplished, inspiring, and courageous person I have ever known. Don’t ever think less of yourself, okay?”

And then, like a rare marvel, like bougainvillea petals blooming in springtime, Mingyu finally _smiles_ past all the tears _-_ so dazzling, Wonwoo can barely retain any coherent thought apart from, _that’s more like it. That’s my Mingyu._

“Hyung,” Mingyu whispers, lisp dancing against the shelter of Wonwoo’s chin, “I love you too, you know that right? I love you so much that it makes me _pathetic.”_

Wonwoo’s answering smile is almost as dazzling as Mingyu’s, though hardly as stunning. 

“You can never be pathetic, Mingyu-yah,” he says, emphasising it with another shimmering kiss, with another promise pressed against the planes of Mingyu’s skin, “To me, you are nothing less than perfect.”

\---

There a few things Jeon Wonwoo holds sacred:

_Late afternoon naps on Sundays. His first cup of morning tea, complete with liberal squeezes of lemon and honey._

And now, this, too. An entirely new addition, but one he hopes will become permanent, will become almost customary:

Mingyu, sprawled underneath him, his sweater haphazardly discarded on the floor, bronze skin in impeccable display, mangled gasps spilling out of him in response to hungry onslaughts of Wonwoo’s tongue.

“Hyuuung,” Mingyu whines, lips kiss-swollen, hair canopied against his _totoro_ plushie - utterly and thoroughly debauched already, even if Wonwoo has barely taken off his own clothes yet, has barely done more than explore the topography of Mingyu’s bare chest, “Y-your friends must still be outside in the living room. Wh-what will they think-”

Wonwoo chuckles against Mingyu’s right nipple - which he has been dedicatedly plundering for the last five minutes, “Pretty sure they’ve left by now, Gyu-yah.” He underlines the words with another series of kisses pressed against the taut, flawless muscle of Mingyu’s abdomen, with reverent touches on the girth of Mingyu’s hips, “For all their lack of tact, they do know when to make themselves scarce.”

Mingyu whines again - a _stunning,_ unbearably arousing sound, sending slivers of heat straight to Wonwoo’s crotch. Wonwoo’s erection is already straining against the fabric of his jeans, is thoroughly _crazed_ and _ravaged_ with how… responsive Mingyu is to Wonwoo’s kisses, with all the lavish little noises that he keeps letting out, with how his head is thrown back in reckless abandon, in open, unbridled invitation for Wonwoo to have his way with him however he likes.

Wonwoo has never felt so single-handedly _wrecked,_ so utterly and completely undone in every way imaginable.

“Mmm,” Mingyu moans out again, his hands buried in Wonwoo’s curls, pulling Wonwoo’s face up from the vicinity of his stomach to the outline of his lips, to another dismantled kiss that makes Wonwoo lose grasp of every single one of his senses. “Like it when you call me _Gyu.”_

Wonwoo smiles, despite himself, despite his erection reaching insurmountable levels, despite every last one of his brain synapses giving up on functioning adequately, utterly capitulating at this particularly calamitous declaration.

“ _Gyu,”_ He whispers into Mingyu’s chapped bottom lip, against the crook of Mingyu’s left canine, determined to do everything Mingyu likes, to make Mingyu feel so, so, good. “ _Gyu, Gyu, Gyu,”_ Another kiss, unstinting, extravagant _“Gyu,_ you have no idea what you do to me.”

“Hyung,” Mingyu’s whine is half-splintered, half-tinged with that very same earnestness that made Wonwoo fall in love with him in the first place, golden-hued affection startlingly evident. “Hyung, I want you _so bad,_ please make me yours, hyung. _Please.”_

“I thought you’d never ask,” Wonwoo whispers, finally unbuttoning the fly of his jeans, untucking his shirt to get it off his sweat-slicked back. His lips never leave Mingyu’s for even a second, though - making good on his promise, letting his want transform into something concrete, into something immortal and boundless. “I thought you’d never ask, my loveliest Gyu.”

\---

Later, after Wonwoo has made Mingyu come apart at the seams against his _totoro_ plushie, has resolutely kissed him back whole, after Wonwoo has plunged inside Mingyu with every bullion of affection and fondness that has festered within him for the last ten months, after he has revelled in Mingyu’s hysteric, battered screams of _hyung, please; hyung, you are so good to me please don’t stop; hyung, I have dreamt of this for so long -_ Mingyu presses his face against the swerve of Wonwoo’s shoulder, limbs lazy and supple, and lets out a long, satisfied sigh.

“I don’t ever want to move from this bed,” Mingyu announces philosophically, the plushie shifting underneath his head as he nuzzles in further against Wonwoo, tucking his six foot two inch tall frame into the tiniest ball just so he can fit snugly against Wonwoo’s chest. “I want to stay like this forever, _with you.”_

Wonwoo laughs his trademark nose-scrunched laugh, unable to drown out the intense _love_ that is continuously smoldering within his soul - and once again realising that he no longer _has_ to. He can be as openly and obviously besotted with Mingyu as he wants to, and there is no physical boundary, no limit, no shadow of uncertainty keeping him cornered. 

“Me too,” he says, pressing his lips lightly against the crown of Mingyu’s head. “But wait, first this-”

With a careful nudge (and a resulting whine of protest from Mingyu), he gets up to fetch a washcloth from the bathroom, but scurries back over at lightning pace - because he’s as unwilling to stay bereft of touch as Mingyu is - to gently sponge at the mess they’ve inflicted on Mingyu’s bed together, toweling away first Mingyu’s bare chest, and then his own, all the while being the subject of an exceedingly lovesick, an exceedingly beautiful, tender chestnut-eyed gaze.

“You know,” Mingyu says, capturing Wonwoo’s hands in his, halfway through Wonwoo’s progress, bringing it to his lips to delicately kiss each one of Wonwoo’s knuckles, “You’re always taking care of others too.”

“Huh?” Wonwoo frowns just the tiniest bit, too overwhelmed and pinioned by the mellowness of the knuckle kisses to properly register the meaning behind Mingyu’s words.

“You once told me, I’m always taking care of others,” Mingyu replies, heartstoppingly indulgent, turning Wonwoo’s hands over to now shower his kisses on Wonwoo’s open palms, tasting the bend of Wonwoo’s heartline, “But you do that too, hyung. You’re just more sneaky about it.”

Wonwoo chuckles, spellbound by the boy before him, by everything Mingyu is and everything he symbolises, by every small and significant way in which Mingyu has tilted his very world off its axis, has wrecked unmitigated havoc, has fashioned an all new set of paradigms and ways of existence.

Wonwoo is so in love that it both _annihilates_ and _restores_ him, that it throws the very foundations of his reality out of balance. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s because of you, Mingyu-yah,” is what he ultimately replies, butterflies continuously swinging against the walls of his stomach, “You’re the one who inspires me to be good.”

\---

“Can I take this off now?” Wonwoo grumbles, satoori adorably slipping into the timbre of his baritone, hands fumbling at the fabric of the blindfold he’s wearing.

“Wait juuuust a second more~!” Mingyu exclaims, carefully setting the basket he has carried up three flights of stairs down on the kitchen table - where Wonwoo has been patiently seated for the past half-an-hour, diligently not taking his blindfold off just like Mingyu had asked him to. 

His gorgeous, obedient hyung.

But wait - not just hyung. Now Wonwoo’s not just his hyung and roommate, but _boyfriend_ too. 

The word feels still feels a tad surreal to use in relation to Wonwoo, Mingyu still awestruck at the fact that his feelings have genuinely been reciprocated all this while, that being lovesick and a little bit pathetic was maybe _okay_ because Wonwoo has also always loved him in return. Him, silly old Mingyu with his too-much-ness, with his bleeding, hammering heart and inability to do anything in half-measures. He is _loved,_ he is _loved_ by the very same boy he's pined after for months and months.

It’s still feels like something out of a dream, to wake up next to Wonwoo in bed every morning, their bare hands interlaced, Wonwoo’s glorious, exquisite curls tickling his forehead as he leans down to level a good morning kiss on Mingyu's mouth, as he continues to run his tongue along every fingerbreadth of Mingyu's skin. It feels like something out of a dream, Wonwoo calling Mingyu _stunning_ every waking moment of every waking day, whispering countless words of affirmation until Mingyu learns to believe them, until Mingyu learns to tentatively wrap his head around the fact that perhaps, he really _is_ worthy of being loved, of being _adored_ like this. It’s something out of a dream, how Wonwoo now smuggles up behind Mingyu when he’s making breakfast, only to settle against the sward of Mingyu’s neck, only to drench him with a deluge of kisses once again and then pull him to the shower to kiss him some _more_ \- an unyielding bounty of kisses, really. 

It’s all dream-like, the earth-shattering sense of contentment he feels, the way his heart hammers and hammers in new and impossible ways. But it's _real_ , it's all marvelously real.

After Mingyu’s initial plans to surprise Wonwoo with his special gift had fallen through the night of Wonwoo’s dissertation defence - due to a combination of Mingyu misinterpreting Wonwoo’s relationship with his friends (who he sincerely apologised to the next day they came over, Jeonghan still smirking at him dauntingly but pulling at his cheeks and immediately proclaiming, “You’re so cute, Mingyu-yah. We’re going to get along swimmingly.”) followed by their impassioned confession and, well, repeated rounds of debauchery - Mingyu has had to reassess and re-strategise. 

Not that it had required a lot of re-strategising, but Mingyu had dedicated every available moment to it anyway - had baked several batches of cookies for their landlord to charm him into securing an official letter of permission, had personally escorted the… special gift in question to recieve their immunisation shots and a thorough health check-up from the nearest veterinarian (who Mingyu _had_ finally located with a simple naver search).

And now, here he is, far more equipped to be presenting Wonwoo with this than he was earlier, far more steadfast in his intentions, in the response he is hoping from Wonwoo.

“Okay, you can take off the blindfold now!” Mingyu declares, carefully removing the blanket from over the basket, and smiling at the three identical sets of large, wondrous feline-eyes that look up at him in both awe and confusion.

 _“Oh my god,”_ Wonwoo says, when he finally complies, when he finally discards the silk fabric of his blindfold and lays eyes on the basket in question, “You- you brought home my cats?”

Byulji purrs in delighted affirmation, immediately sprinting out of the basket to secure her familiar spot on top of Wonwoo’s shoulder (Mingyu doesn’t blame her one bit, Wonwoo’s shoulder really is the most comfortable cuddling spot in the entire world), while Namsun and Ddoori climb onto Wonwoo’s lap, immediately beginning to claw at the fabric of his sweatshirt to demand headpats.

Wonwoo giggles, his face taking on that particularly enamoured hue that only his feline friends inspire, that render him so handsome and adorable and utterly, utterly magnificent that Mingyu always forgets how to breathe in the wake of it.

Right now, too, Mingyu's heart is hammering at the sight of the cute, babyvoiced little conversation Wonwoo is having with his cats, telling them how much he loves them, how much he missed them.

“Y-yeah,” Mingyu somehow manages to choke, an uncontrollable blush adorning his cheekbones, “I- I know you told me that the reason you couldn’t adopt them earlier was because you used to live alone and had a huge workload and time crunch - but!! You have me now!! We’ll take care of them together!! We’ll divide cat-sitting duties based on our work schedules and on the days both you and I are busy Minghao has volunteered to come over and look after them!! I have it all worked out, hyung!”

Wonwoo only stares up at Mingyu in awe, even if both his hands are still absently buried in Namsun and Byulji’s fur respectively. He looks enthralled, rendered totally speechless, but there’s a familiar nose-scrunch crinkling underneath his glasses, making Mingyu’s heart hammer once again like it never stops hammering around Wonwoo, deafening and inexorable.

“Jeon Wonwoo and Kim Mingyu, cat dads.” he whispers, soft, ponderous, his smile sending Mingyu’s hammering heart almost lurching out of his chest, “Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

And _yeah._

Maybe Mingyu will forever be a little bit lovesick and a little bit pathetic, maybe Mingyu will forever be under the indestructible spell of curly-haired, kind-eyed, nose-scrunched Jeon Wonwoo, but _it’s worth it._

It’s worth it, when every moment of the rest of his life is going to look like this: immersed in endless, uninhibited love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well. so, uhm. sorry for this meanie magnum opus literally no one asked for and sorry for having way too many feelings about the lovely boys whom we know as kim mingyu and jeon wonwoo.
> 
> read my detailed commentary on this fic & its writing process [here on my dreamwidth](https://heartofashes.dreamwidth.org/1565.html#cutid1)
> 
> and as always, you have every license to yell at me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/briochestitch)! i truly deserve nothing but yelling.


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